Thatcher en klimaat

Verrassing, verrassing! Margaret Thatcher: de eerste klimaatalarmist!

Vele mensen denken dat klimaat vooral een thema is voor linksmensen en dat rechtsmensen daar afwijzend(er) tegenover staan. Voor hen zal het als een verrassing komen dat het Margaret Thatcher was die het thema op de internationale agenda heeft gezet.

In het boekje, 'Man–Made Global Warming: Unravelling a Dogma', dat ik samen met Dick Thoenes en Simon Rozendaal in 2004 heb gepubliceerd, schreef ik het volgende over de rol van Margaret Thatcher:

Margaret Thatcher seeks to raise her profile on the world stage.

Back to the 1980s. According to Richard Courtney, it was primarily British Prime Minister Mar­garet Thatcher who ensured that climate issues were given such a prominent place on the inter­national agenda, although not so much out of climatological considerations. She saw climate change as a suitable theme for earning a reputation. All that she could boast of in her earlier political career was the fact that she had been a ‘Junior Minister’ for Education in the Heath gov­ern­ment. But she had made little impact in that position. She was the only woman among western leaders and wanted to be taken seriously by them.

Sir Crispin Tickell, the British ambassador to the UN, thought that he had a solution. He pointed out that virtually all international leaders were ‘illiterate’ in scientific areas. If it was possible to find a scientific theme that could be discussed at world level, Mrs Thatcher, who had earned a degree in chemistry from Somerville College, Oxford, could play a prominent role in the debate. That could have a positive impact on the credibility of her ideas about other world prob­lems. He proposed that Thatcher should place the theme of ‘global warming’ on the agenda for every summit. And these tactics were successful. The other world leaders started to take an interest in the problem, even if it was only to prevent Mrs Thatcher from disrupting meetings, according to Courtney. They asked their officials for advice and were told that, although the scientific basis was controversial, the theme was important from the economic angle. The American economy is the most energy-intensive in the world. If agree­ment were to be reached at global level on introduction of CO2 taxes or similar measures, the US would be hardest hit in relative terms and other countries would be able to strengthen their relative competitive position vis-à-vis the US. For that reason, Mrs Thatcher received support from politicians from many countries.

As a result, recognition of ‘global warming’ as a question of in­ter­national policy was a fact. This can be seen most clearly in paragraphs 62 and 63 of the communiqué issued by the G-7 summit in Houston in July 1990 ( ). 

But, in addition to raising her own profile, there was another reason why Thatcher wanted to give priority to the climate issue. This was rationalisation of the British coal industry. At home, Thatch­er had the support of her own party. Most of the members of the Conservative cabinet that came into office in 1979 had also been members of the government that lost the election in 1974. For that they blamed the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). According to Courtney, they sought a pretext for cur­tailing the power of the British coal industry, and thereby also of the NUM. Coal-fired power stations emit CO2; nuclear plants do not. ‘Global warming’ provided a welcome alibi for reducing British dependence on coal and replacing it with nuclear energy. This was necessary not only for energy provision but also for the British nuclear arms programme, in particular Trident rockets and submarines. But the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island (March 1979) and Chernobyl (April 1986) had struck a severe blow to public confidence in nuclear technology. At the same time, privatisation of electricity generation had brought to light the fact that nuclear electricity was four times as expensive as electricity from coal. That meant that ‘global warming’ was the only remaining excuse to legitimise maintenance of the unpopular nuclear electricity plants.

To that end, Thatcher found it necessary to spend more money at home, in part to underpin the credibility of her international campaign. One of the measures in this connection was creation of the British ‘Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research’, which was to become one of the most important contributors to IPCC’s working group I. 

When Margaret Thatcher was succeeded by John Major, UK interest in ‘global warming’ ebbed away. The research grants were reduced. British scientists spoke critically about the warming thesis. It seemed as if the theme would die a natural death. But when the population protested about the scale on which coal mines were being closed during the October 1992 ‘coal crisis’, the British government once again needed justification for its policy. To that end, an advertising campaign was launched in which the threat of climate change was underscored. In addition, research priorities were reviewed and climate change moved back into a leading position. This policy was continued when Tony Blair came to power in May 1997. 

Bron hier.

In een recenter boek, 'The Age of Global Warming', gaat Rupert Darwall wat dieper in op Thatcher's rol inzake klimaat.  

Unlike the blanket TV coverage NASA climate scientist James Hansen generated at his 1988 appearance before Congress, there were no cameras when British prime minister Margaret Thatcher addressed the Royal Society on 27th September 1988. Told that the prime minister’s speech was going to be on climate change, the BBC decided it wouldn’t make the TV news.  

The speech had been a long time in the making. Flying back from visiting French president François Mitterrand in Paris in May 1984, Thatcher asked her officials if any of them had any new policy ideas for the forthcoming Group of Seven (G7) summit in London. Sir Crispin Tickell, then a deputy-undersecretary at the Foreign Office, suggested climate change and how it might figure in the G7 agenda. The next day, Tickell was summoned to Number 10 to brief the prime minister. The eventual result was to make environmental problems a specific item, and a statement in the London G7 communiqué duly referred to the international dimension of environmental problems and the role of environmental factors, including climate change. Environment ministers were instructed to report back to the G7 meeting at Bonn the following year, and duly did so. ...  

When Margaret Thatcher opened the Hadley Center in May 1990 she said “ greenhouse gases are increasing substantially as a result of Man’s activities; this will warm the Earth’s surface, with serious consequences for us all, and these consequences are capable of prediction. We want to predict them more accurately and that is why we are opening this Centre today.”

Lees verder hier.

Dat is tot op heden nog niet gelukt. Een opwarmingspauze van 16 jaar werd toen – en vele jaren daarna – nog niet voorzien. De verklaring daarvan kost de mainstream klimatologen veel hoofdbrekens. Zij zijn daar tot op heden nog niet in geslaagd. En naar mijn inschatting zal dat ook nooit (ik herhaal 'nooit') gebeuren. Immers, de menselijke broeikashypothese rammelt aan alle kanten en is in strijd met de metingen en andere observaties. In dat licht gezien is het dan ook niet verwonderlijk dat Margaret Thatcher later van mening veranderde. In haar boek, 'Statecraft', schreef zij:

The doomsters’ favourite subject today is climate change. This has a number of attractions for them. First, the science is extremely obscure so they cannot easily be proved wrong. Second, we all have ideas about the weather: traditionally, the English on first acquaintance talk of little else. Third, since clearly no plan to alter climate could be considered on anything but a global scale, it provides a marvellous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism. All this suggests a degree of calculation. Yet perhaps that is to miss half the point. Rather, as it was said of Hamlet that there was method in his madness, so one feels that in the case of some of the gloomier alarmists there is a large amount of madness in their method.

Indeed, the lack of any sense of proportion is what characterises many pronouncements on the matter by otherwise sensible people. Thus President Clinton on a visit to China, which poses a serious strategic challenge to the US, confided to his host, President Jiang Zemin, that his greatest concern was the prospect that ‘your people may get rich like our people, and instead of riding bicycles, they will drive automobiles, and the increase in greenhouse gases will make the planet more dangerous for all.’  

It would, though, be difficult to beat for apocalyptic hyperbole former Vice President Gore. Mr Gore believes: ‘The cleavage in the modern world between mind and body, man and nature, has created a new kind of addiction: I believe that our civilisation is, in effect, addicted to the consumption of the earth itself.’ And he warns: ‘Unless we find a way to dramatically change our civilisation and our way of thinking about the relationship between humankind and the earth, our children will inherit a wasteland.’  

But why pick on the Americans? Britain’s then Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, has observed: ‘There is no greater national duty than the defence of our shoreline. But the most immediate threat to it today is the encroaching sea.’

Britain has found, it seems, a worthy successor to King Canute.  

The fact that seasoned politicians can say such ridiculous things – and get away with it – illustrates the degree to which the new dogma about climate change has swept through the left-of-centre governing classes. [ ]

Lees verder hier.

Aldus Margaret Thatcher.

Het zij haar vergeven dat het feit dat zij hiertoe destijds de stoot had gegeven kennelijk eventjes in haar herinnering was weggezakt. In mijn ogen doet dat overigens in het geheel geen afbreuk aan haar statuur als een van de grootste Europese staatslieden van de afgelopen eeuw. We zullen haar misssen.

Voor mijn eerdere DDS-bijdragen, zie hier.