Climate scientists fear loss of policy influence under Rees-Mogg

Climate scientists have expressed horror at Jacob Rees-Mogg’s appointment as the secretary of state overseeing UK energy policy, warning that it will make it even harder to turn academic research into urgently needed policies.

Mr Rees-Mogg, who as business secretary will also oversee the distribution of £15 billion a year in research spending, has repeatedly questioned the scientific consensus behind climate change, claiming that “climate alarmism” should be blamed for high energy prices and that it was unrealistic for scientists to assert that they could model global warming accurately when meteorologists struggled to correctly predict the weather. He supports continuing fossil fuel extraction in the North Sea.

Stuart Capstick, deputy director of the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformation, an Economic and Social Research Council-funded centre based at Cardiff University, said that while “it would take more than a poorly informed minister to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change,” the lack of focus on this issue in government would “make it harder to translate research into policy”.

“My research centre is clear that in order to tackle the climate crisis, we need a profound shift in the ways we live in the UK, and for citizens’ engagement with climate action to be taken seriously and supported by government…So far, though, there has been little sign that government recognises the importance of these things, and the appointment of Jacob Rees-Mogg suggests that is very unlikely to change for the better,” he said.

Dr Capstick said that overall strategies for UK research councils funding climate-related science had recently been set for the next five years, with the ESRC and the Natural Environment Research Council both committed to tackling the climate crisis. On this basis, funding should be “reasonably well protected”, he argued.

But Dr Capstick said he wondered “about the most appropriate way for those working in research and HE to engage with a government that now seems to be making all the wrong noises about climate action – indeed, whether those of us who are desperately concerned about the climate crisis should continue to engage at all”.

“Probably it is not helpful to cease doing so entirely, but we should be as blunt as possible that measures like cutting green levies, blocking onshore wind and solar, while promoting new oil and gas and having no meaningful programme of home insulation, are completely wrong-headed and at odds with the UK’s national obligations and international reputation as a leader on climate change,” he said.

Joanna Haigh, a distinguished research fellow at Imperial College London who led its Grantham Institute until 2019, described Mr Rees-Mogg’s appointment as “seriously worrying”.

“Scientific studies have shown that recent global warming is indisputably a result of massive fossil fuel combustion and that greenhouse gas warming contributed significantly to recent anomalous regional weather events, including the catastrophic flooding in Pakistan. Scientists have also found that major sea level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now inevitable. Swift action on fossil fuel emissions is absolutely crucial if we are to prevent such, and worse, disasters,” Professor Haigh said.

“Rees-Mogg has a record of climate change denial and has expressed views that action on climate change is too expensive, that the recent energy price rise is due to green taxes and that the UK should expand its exploitation of North Sea gas and oil reserves. Such perspectives are demonstrably inaccurate and hugely dangerous should they be used as a basis for determining UK energy policy.”

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com