London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Aug 22, 2025

Jacob Rees-Mogg, who decried ‘climate alarmism’, to take on UK energy brief

Jacob Rees-Mogg, who decried ‘climate alarmism’, to take on UK energy brief

Minister adds climate change to role after Liz Truss fails to hire dedicated energy minister

Jacob Rees-Mogg has taken on responsibility for energy after Liz Truss had struggled to find a dedicated minister to fill the role amid concerns over his scepticism.

Two Conservative MPs are understood to have turned down the role of climate change minister earlier in the day. However, late on Tuesday night No 10 announced that Graham Stuart would take the brief and be attending cabinet, prompting speculation that Downing Street had succumbed to concerns of green Tories about giving the role to Rees-Mogg as originally planned.

The Cop26 chair Alok Sharma has also been reappointed to the role.

Chris Skidmore, the former energy minister, was approached twice by the Truss team about reprising the role. However, he rebuffed them as, unlike last time, the job would not allow him to attend cabinet. It is understood he had no problem in working with Rees-Mogg but wanted to continue promoting net zero. He also has a fellowship at Harvard.

Green Tories admitted concerns that Rees-Mogg’s expanded brief signals that Truss, who has supported scrapping green levies and bringing back fracking, will not regard the climate breakdown as an emergency and therefore not treat it as a priority.


The Green party MP for Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas, tweeted: “After three years with a reckless self-advancing PM, Liz Truss reportedly plans to lead us through biggest energy crisis in decades by making Jacob Rees-Mogg – known for snide notes to civil servants, horizontal slouching in Commons & devotion to fossil fuels – our energy secretary.”

Rees-Mogg has claimed that “climate alarmism” is responsible for high energy prices and that it is unrealistic for scientists to project future changes to the climate because meteorologists struggle to correctly predict the weather.

The new business secretary said in April that the government wanted “every last drop” of oil and gas to be extracted from the North Sea as he dismissed warnings that a renewed push for fossil fuels would ruin the UK’s chances of achieving net zero by 2050.

The cabinet minister also described the idea of reopening shale gas sites as “quite an interesting opportunity”, comparing the fracking threat to “a rock fall in a disused coalmine”.

Senior Tories admitted they were worried about Rees-Mogg’s appointment, with one former minister saying it was “not very encouraging” but that they hoped he would stick to Johnson’s commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

One Tory MP suggested it was a “slim hope” that the new business secretary would recognise that tackling climate change was “an opportunity, not a cost”.

A former No 10 adviser said: “I always think it’s better with the devil you know with Tory MPs and we might just be about to find out. Unfortunately, the climate is now what’s at stake. Jacob would be so bad for the environment it breaks my heart.”

Allies of Rees Mogg dismissed the concerns of Tory MPs suggesting they were misplaced as the senior Tory had committed to the net zero target by 2050.

There were also indications that Truss’s new No 10 could play down tackling the climate crisis as a priority with Matthew Sinclair, her new chief economic adviser, having a history of arguing against taxation to pay for environmental policies.

Sinclair is the author of a book called Let Them Eat Carbon, which challenges whether policies to address climate change are worth the cost to living standards, and papers including The Case Against Further Green Taxes.

A former chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, a rightwing free market thinktank that does not disclose its funding, Sinclair has previously criticised the UK government for being “enthusiastic advocates for more ambitious targets and more draconian climate regulations”, while arguing in favour of more mitigation or adaptation.


Jacob Rees-Mogg on climate change


The Telegraph, Oct 23,2013:

Clearly expectations of a final disaster are part of man’s psychology and the doomsayers of the quasi religious green movement fit the bill. Perhaps one day the world will end, giving the last group to predict it the satisfaction of being right – but as many have been wrong so far it does not seem wise to make public policy on the back of these fears.

It is widely accepted that carbon dioxide emissions have risen but the effect on the climate remains much debated while the computer modelling that has been done to date has not proved especially accurate … common sense dictates that if the Meteorological Office cannot forecast the next season’s weather with any success it is ambitious to predict what will happen decades ahead.

Chat Politics, March 2014:

I would like my constituents to have cheap energy rather more than I would like them to have windmills.

I think we have to be realistic about what we can change, the timescale over which we can change it, and actually I think mankind is highly adaptable, and we need to look at more adaptability rather than changes in behaviour.

Centre for Policy Studies, April 2022:

Net zero is going to be a huge regulatory cost and that is an issue for the country to face and to face up to … If we were to have a ‘one in, one out’ or ‘one in, two out’ rule [where a piece of regulation is scrapped for every new one instituted], you would end up excluding net zero, as we previously excluded EU regulation, and then you’re tinkering at the edges because you’re ignoring the biggest piece of regulation.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW Amid Comcast’s Cable Spin-Off
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
William and Kate Are Moving House – and the New Neighbors Were Evicted
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
Taylor Swift on the Way to the Super Bowl? All the Clues Stirring Up Fans
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Apple Expands Social Media Presence in China With RedNote Account Ahead of iPhone 17 Launch
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Cambridge Dictionary Adds 'Skibidi,' 'Delulu,' and 'Tradwife' Amid Surge of Online Slang
Bill Barr Testifies No Evidence Implicated Trump in Epstein Case; DOJ Set to Release Records
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
The CEO Who Replaced 80% of Employees for the AI Revolution: "I Would Do It Again"
Emails Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Character.ai Bets on Future of AI Companionship
China Ramps Up Tax Crackdown on Overseas Investments
Japanese Office Furniture Maker Expands into Bomb Shelter Market
Intel Shares Surge on Possible U.S. Government Investment
Hurricane Erin Threatens U.S. East Coast with Dangerous Surf
EU Blocks Trade Statement Over Digital Rule Dispute
EU Sends Record Aid as Spain Battles Wildfires
JPMorgan Plans New Canary Wharf Tower
Zelenskyy and his allies say they will press Trump on security guarantees
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Escalating Clashes in Serbia as Anti-Government Protests Spread Nationwide
The Drought in Britain and the Strange Request from the Government to Delete Old Emails
Category 5 Hurricane in the Caribbean: 'Catastrophic Storm' with Winds of 255 km/h
"No, Thanks": The Mathematical Genius Who Turned Down 1.5 Billion Dollars from Zuckerberg
The surprising hero, the ugly incident, and the criticism despite victory: "Liverpool’s defense exposed in full"
Digital Humans Move Beyond Sci-Fi: From Virtual DJs to AI Customer Agents
YouTube will start using AI to guess your age. If it’s wrong, you’ll have to prove it
Jellyfish Swarm Triggers Shutdown at Gravelines Nuclear Power Station in Northern France
×