Three of the UK’s leading journalists offer ten justifications for inaction on climate

A creeping scepticism about the future impact of climate change has encouraged newspapers and magazines to publish opinions from journalists opposed to resolute action - or indeed any action at all - on rising temperatures. I looked at three articles from the last month that argue that emissions reductions are an inappropriate response to global warming.^[1] These pieces contain at least ten different - and often new - reasons just to let the bad things happen rather than actively slowing global warming.

The journalists wrote in the Daily Telegraph and Financial Times newspapers and The Spectator magazine. So it isn’t just the UK mass-market tabloids which are fighting back against a policy of taking climate seriously.

Here are their assertions that action is unnecessary:

1, Technology will save us. Stuart Kirk, a Financial Times columnist, argued that the huge fall in the costs of solar-generated electricity is an example of technological progress. We can expect, he suggests without giving any examples, that similar trends will happen in the future. Therefore we should wait for lower costs of low carbon solutions rather than taking any action now. He provides no evidence whatsoever to support his claim that not-invented-yet solutions will become available soon.

2, Lowering our emissions will cause detriment to national security. Allison Pearson in the Daily Telegraph argued that pursuit of net zero is causing us to become vulnerable to foreign countries because we buy key infrastructure for the electricity grid abroad. She asserts that long delays in the supply of items such as large transformers are holding the UK back. So we should cease to prioritise decarbonisation of electricity supply. Even after careful reading, it is impossible to work out how Ms Pearson sees the UK move towards net zero as causing the global shortage of electrical kit. The extraordinary worldwide growth in data centres, and the electrical infrastructure necessary to support them, is driving the long delivery times for new equipment for decarbonisation projects, not the pursuit of net zero in the UK.

3, We substantially exaggerate the threat from global warming by failing to understand that many phenomena thought to be caused by higher temperatures are actually the result of purely natural processes. An article by Matt Ridley in the Spectator was headlined ‘Don’t blame climate change for the Himalayan flash flood’. He went on to say that those of us who see melting glaciers as a principal cause of the tragedy are ‘clutching at straws to advance political agendas’. He goes on to write ‘This catastrophe was far more likely to have had an entirely natural cause’. The implication is that there is no need to slow climate change. Nobody else agrees: melting ice and permafrost are seen by scientists working in the region as a central reason for the disaster. And rising temperatures are likely to cause many similar catastrophes in the future.

4, We were similarly worried about the ozone layer and that problem just went away. The Telegraph’s Pearson compares global warming with the loss of the ozone layer. She appears to believe that the ozone problem disappeared quickly and without radical action and seems to postulate that similar indifference will cure climate change. In reality the ozone layer is still recovering slowly almost forty years after a near-complete and largely successful ban on a dangerous but widely-used class of chemicals.

5, The shift to renewables just rewards entrepreneurs linked to the former UK energy secretary, Ed Miliband. So the country shouldn’t be investing further in wind and solar. Ms Pearson suggests that ‘green taxes are slapped on bills to subsidise Ed Miliband’s renewables cronies’, implying that the shift to renewable electricity is being driven by political corruption rather than national need. No evidence is provided for this assertion.

6, Better to adapt to higher temperatures rather than minimising emissions. The FT’s Stuart Kirk tells us that ‘Too much focus on mitigation and not enough on adaptation is a .. mistake’. We should be ‘building sea walls and installing air conditioners’ rather than cutting fossil fuel use. He provides no evidence that adaption is cost effective compared to emissions reduction. Neither does he show how adaption is a long-term solution to the serious problems caused by rapidly rising temperatures such as declines in food production, water shortages and hugely destructive rainstorms.

7, The costs of climate change will be small. Stuart Kirk writes in his FT article ‘Climate financial risk remains negligible’. There is therefore no benefit in taking action to mitigate global temperature rises and other meteorological costs. Mr Kirk points to the continued high valuation of oil and gas companies as a justification for persisting with an economy based around fossil fuels. Even as climate changes makes life more difficult for a large fraction of the world’s population, particularly in hotter countries, the journalist focuses exclusively on the stock market performance of the world’s worst polluters, now hugely benefiting from the US-Iran war.

8, Worse disasters happened at lower temperatures so we shouldn’t worry too much about warming. Matt Ridley points out that although the recent Nepal glacial and rock collapse probably killed thousands, worse events have taken place in the past. He mentions a flash flood in Peru in 1970 which killed 18,000 and says that this happened ‘at a time of global cooling’. (Temperatures were actually broadly flat in the 1965-1975 period). Therefore, he asserts, we are wrong to associate natural catastrophes with global warming. They will occur anyway. Mr Ridley ignores the many types of disasters that are becoming more frequent as the climate heats up such as drought, excess temperatures and crop failures.

9, The UK creates an insignificant fraction of global warming gases, and so our actions on climate are pointless. Ms Pearson and Mr Kirk remind us that the UK contributes less than 1% of world emissions. They assert that there is no point in the UK doing anything. But, as Hannah Ritchie pointed out in 2023, 36% of the world’s emissions arise in the 200 or so countries that contribute less than 2% of the global total. And, of course, having emitted about 4% of the total CO2 in the atmosphere, we in the UK have a responsibility to act on behalf of all the people now suffering from the rapidly changing climate.

10, We cannot know what people in the future will want. Therefore we should take no action on their behalf. Lastly, here is perhaps the most surprising of all Stuart Kirk’s comments, a justification for inaction that I have never seen before. He tells us that we have a ‘single-minded obsession with future generations, whose wealth, size, habits and desires we can never know’.. ‘Putting their needs in front of ours .. is not .. good policy’. In other words, we should act solely in the interests of the people of today and ignore the consequences of our actions on the lives of the unborn. I don’t think this requires any response.

Not in these three articles, but increasingly voiced elsewhere, is an eleventh opinion that suggests other problems, such as the lack of restraints on AI and the threat from Russian aggression, are more serious and urgent. We should, the proponents of this view, say, focus on these immediate issues rather than combating climate change, which is distracts us from responding to these new threats. The obvious response is to say that we need to act on all this issues now, including climate. Progress on global emissions may not seem as urgent as combating AI malfeasance or Russian drones but it is perhaps more important.

We have seen some progress in public commentary on climate in the last few years. Few writers now doubt the consensus that temperatures are rising and growing greenhouse gas concentrations are to blame. Climate sceptics have moved on to say that action is too expensive, too difficult, may not be necessary and would have little effect but nevertheless reduce the UK’s energy and defence security. They contend, without giving evidence, that adaptation is easier and cheaper than reducing emissions. Future generations can be left to look after themselves.

These are the contentions which we now need to fight, responding to the wild, incompletely argued and almost irrational positions to which the sceptics have retreated. We can expect this to be a long battle.

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^[1] These articles are ‘Net zero is a national suicide pact’ Allison Pearson, Daily Telegraph, 20^th September 2026, ‘Don’t blame climate change for the Himalayan flash flood’, Matt Ridley, The Spectator, 2^nd September 2026 and ‘The climate doom-mongers now dread sovereign debt blowouts’, Stuart Kirk, Financial Times, 26^th September 2026. For non-subscribers to these newspapers, I may be able to send a link that gives free access to the article.