Author Archives: Matthew Lockwood

Think about the populist anti-politics vote and suddenly it’s everywhere – in the UK, across Europe, and currently very much in France. Not always linked to climate scepticism, but sometimes very strongly so, and not going away soon.

Last week the UK Energy Research Council  produced a big report on the route to a demonstration of carbon capture and storage (coordinated by my Sussex colleague Jim Watson), informed by past experience of stimulating innovation in similar types of large scale … Continue reading →

Last week saw a pitched battle outside Indonesia’s parliament building, with water cannons and tear gas deployed on 10,000 protestors. The reason? Proposals from the government to cut

Dieter Helm, centre right economist and newly appointed Chair of the Natural Capital Committee has just produced an interesting new essay (hat tip to Matthew Spencer). His approach draws a lot on the work of people like Kenneth Arrow and Partha Dasgupta who … Continue reading →

Couple of items tonight: 1. As new boy in DECC, Ed Davey seems to have been ambushed by the gas industry, with a ruling allowing new gas power plants to emit up to 450 gCO2/kWh out to 2045. This move will … Continue reading →

There’s been quite a lot of discussion of the intergenerational implications of debt recently. Paul Krugman tries to explain (here, here and here) that borrowing today does not, on the whole, leave a net burden of debt to our children tomorrow,

Amongst all the coverage in the build up to Durban last week, I noticed a rather odd-looking story from Fiona Harvey (previously at the Financial Times, now in the green corner at The Guardian) on “government research” claiming that UK … Continue reading →