THE CARBON WAR

Winning dirty in an endless war 117
Our PR agency decrees that I need some coaching in “how to talk to
the Right”. I protest, but not too strenuously. One Spectator issue ran a cover
headline exhorting readers to “Relax: Global Warming Is All A Myth”. I need
coaching in how not to have a heart attack, if I am to be faced with stuff like that.
Laura Sandys, a delightful Conservative who actually wants to conserve
things – important things, including the planet – is assigned the task. She is
a serving Member of Parliament but also sits on Carbon Tracker’s advisory
board. I listen, and find her perspectives fascinating.
The strategies of the Right include a concerted effort to create cultism,
she tells me, with disarming frankness. They and their media supporters, of
which there are distressingly many, seek to paint believers in global warming
as old-fashioned flat-earthers who are anti development. They view this as their
strongest message. They are very professional and co-ordinated in pushing it.
They focus on heart and pocket, not head. They are not frightened of being
controversial and emotive, and they use a wide range of messengers.
The worst thing, she emphasises, is that they may be winning. In 2005,
82% of the population professed concern about climate change. Now only
around 60% do.
There is no point engaging on climate science, or even using that many
facts, Laura argues. Feelings are what work in this pseudo-debate, and what
we need is a new route to arouse them.
Somewhat consistent with my belated education in the recent discoveries
of neuroscientists, then. But depressing nonetheless.
We need to paint a desirable picture of a necessary transformation, Laura
continues, using innovative new technologies, ones that offer greater productivity,
efficiency and profitability; that are modern, progressive and secure.
Jeremy, she says, I think that the most powerful arguments are about
modernity versus old fashioned business models mixed with the cost of not
addressing climate change. None of these guys want to look behind the times.
That’s it, I think. That is what I will major on. Telling the rightists that
they risk being on “The Wrong Side Of History.” The developments at the
Bank of England and in E.ON’s Stuttgart headquarters have surely made my
job easier for me.
Andrew Neil, former editor of the Sunday Times, one-time favourite
of arch-conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, now chairman of the
Spectator, chairs the event. He introduces the panel I am on, the first of the day.
James Ball, a director of the first company to export LNG from the US,
speaks first. He is a trenchant advocate of the shale narrative. He recites the litany