Rupert Darwall

Author of The Age of Global Warming: A History and Green Tyranny (she/her, the dog that is)

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

My review of Todd Stern's indispensable book on the Paris climate agreement - a mechanism for the unilateral decarbonisation of the West - and argues the West needs to abandon the agreement and net zero to save itself ...

https://t.co/b7VTHcvKZt

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@zoecabina @RachelMoiselle @Mr_Andrew_Fox @Quillette Inept is a thoroughly dishonest description of the police treatment of Henry Nowack. Inhumane. Cruel. Callous. Heatless. Indifferent to human suffering. And the question Andrew Fox virtually ignores is Why? An ignomious piece of commentary.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@XChiefMI6 A grievous loss to the country. From his recent public appearances, a man of shrewd wisdom on the state of the world, entirely devoid of wishful thinking.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@GBNEWS @MichelleDewbs Bravo Dewbs. The dying victim is handcuffed and his murderer wasn't.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@PatrickChristys It wasn't incompetence.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@GoCOtwo @GWPF_org @Prosperity_Inst Zero percent of the world's coal ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@shashj A huge loss to the country.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

"Aggressive forms of communication are myopic. The electoral maths show that coalitions will need to be formed at some point ... Fixing Britain requires seriousness" - @MDC12345678 ...

[Maurice Cousins @MDC12345678]

Labour is the perfect example of where fallacious arguments and illogical thinking lead. They distort your understanding of reality and box you into positions you cannot escape.

Misrepresenting your political opponents and rewriting history for tactical advantage gets you nowhere. To win the next election, the Right needs more than policies. It must also maintain the moral high ground.

Senior figures on the Right can hardly complain about the Left’s delusions, from denial of grooming gangs to "trans women are women" and "renewables will cut your bills by £300", if they indulge in fantasies of their own.

Aggressive forms of communication are myopic. The electoral maths show that coalitions will need to be formed at some point. This is something the progressive the Left are starting to grasp!

Fixing Britain requires seriousness. That means being motivated by what is true and staying rooted firmly in reality.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@rebeccafa77 @PaulEmbery Equity. Not equality. Please get it right.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

"The next phase of Net Zero now reaches into family holidays, diet, farming and everyday freedom of movement" - @MDC12345678 on Carbon Budget 7 ...

[Maurice Cousins @MDC12345678]

Yesterday, while political attention focused on the shocking Nowak case, Ed Miliband confirmed to Parliament what had long been expected. He said the Government intends to legislate for the Seventh Carbon Budget (CB7), committing Britain to cut emissions by 87% below 1990 levels by around 2040.

Under the Climate Change Act, ministers must legislate for the budget by 30 June 2026. Miliband has said the delivery plan will be published "as soon as reasonably practical".

Why does CB7 matter?

Politicians often sell Net Zero as simple substitution and "transition". Petrol cars become electric cars. Gas boilers become heat pumps. Aviation fuel becomes sustainable aviation fuel. Life then continues much as before but cleaner.

But the CCC’s own pathway shows something much broader and intrusive. It requires not only new technology and electrification, but managed changes in demand, diet, aviation, land use, industry and much more.

Aviation exposes the problem. Ministers can use the oldest rhetorical tricks in the book and claim that holidays are not banned, but the real question is whether flying becomes more expensive and restricted. With little evidence that SAF, electric flight or other innovations can decarbonise aviation at scale, demand growth will have to be limited using a mix of indirect and direct measures. As the CCC said in February, "Aviation demand can only grow if aviation sector technology roll-out progresses."

Diet follows a similar logic. Policymakers rarely dwell on meat and dairy, but the CCC pathway assumes lower meat consumption, fewer domestic livestock and land released from farming. Ministers haven't really started and yet we are already seeing the consequences. Milk, butter and beef are among the fastest-rising food categories, in part because UK policy has helped shrink domestic herds. Cow numbers have been falling by roughly 3% a year for the last decade.

This is why language matters. Sanitised terms such as "demand management", "low-carbon choices" and "land-use change" sound administrative. In practice, they mean state direction of ordinary life and a managed retreat from the freedoms of modern consumer capitalism.

Ed Miliband has been very explicit about this. In Go Big, his post-pandemic manifesto, he writes that the purpose of his climate mission is "to abandon this 300-year model of economic growth."

This is why the argument now comes down to trust.

For two decades, politicians like Miliband have told the public that the green transition would make energy cheaper and more secure. That promise has not survived contact with reality. In 2026, Britain has some of the highest power prices in the developed world. With so little spare capacity, we have also left ourselves more exposed to energy shocks, from the war in Ukraine to instability in the Middle East.

The next phase of Net Zero now reaches into family holidays, diet, farming and everyday freedom of movement.

Can we really trust the same political class that got energy costs so badly wrong to impose the next round of legally binding emissions cuts? They have failed to protect the public during the cost of living crisis. Why should anyone trust them to protect us from higher costs and taxes over the remaining 24 years of the "transition"?

The stakes at the next election could scarcely be higher.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@Simon_Nixon @gideonrachman @brendanpsimms Britain ceased being a great power after WW II, e.g., its role in the Korean War was essentially to "tag along behind the US" (Sir John Slessor), which is not how great powers behave.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

"Philp is correct,as is Farage. This is the true state religion that governs our society...For its hold on public life to endure, for the faith of its adherents to not be shaken, it has turned the British people into its unwilling victims"- @arisroussinos. https://t.co/2FF6Y9Rnjm

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

"Build faith in our institutions" ?? --

Kemi has this the wrong way round.

The institutions, specifically the police, need to be completely rebuilt, its rotten leadership held accountable and many of them fired, if the police are to regain the public's trust ...

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

Identity politics divides our country whoever is doing it.

The Conservative Party rejects it.

We believe in universalism and equality under the law. We must not treat people differently on the basis of skin colour. We have to build faith and trust in our institutions.

If there is one thing that should come from Henry’s death, it is that we make things better, so that this does not happen to any of our boys again.

That is what I am committed to.

I do not want his death to be in vain.

Let’s do this for Henry. Let’s get this right.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@docMJP @beyondreasdoubt

[BBC News (UK) @BBCNews]

27 police officers injured during largely peaceful anti-racism protests in London https://t.co/vIq1VL1aiT

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@DespoticInroad @NickCohen4 If it's sophistry to posit that net zero ("intentional societal transformation" - IPCC) and Neo-Keynesian ultra-low interest rates are neoliberal, then you're right, but of course they're not and your argument is pigswill.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@Mr_Andrew_Fox ... and that's why, as his father says, the dying Henry Nowak was handcuffed and his murderer wasn't. Overall, an absolutely gobsmackingly shite take.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@ThxTom90228 Do you think they'd have handcuffed the Sikh if it had been the other way round?

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@CathyYoung63 Empathy burnout. What utter shite. Heartless, callous, mind-numbing cruelty.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@GeorgeTrefgarne Burnham's an idiot and being found out as one.

[Rupert Darwall @RupertDarwall]

@MelanieLatest The test of an ideology and a party on the question of national identity is its attitude to Britain's Jews. It seems to me that Restore fails that test; indeed, it doesn't even try.