This is the launch pad for a bunch of different sub-pages which, over time, will be populated. The purpose is to help me (and by extension others) understand the past, present (and future?) of UK climate governance. Me, I am going to need this professionally over the coming year(s?).
To be completely clear – this is me writing in a personal capacity. My opinions (hopefully backed up with evidence, and flagged when controversial/later-turn-out-not-to-have-evidence-in-support), not me speaking on behalf of any organisation.
My brain works on timelines and phases. Once you do that (and it is “artificial”, of course) you can start asking questions about what happens within the periods and why [who is trying to do what, with what success, how and why, versus other people trying to stop them/amplify them etc] , what drives change between periods and so on. A change in period does NOT necessarily mean there was a critical juncture, or that there was a major change in direction, just that it’s a useful way of focussing attention etc.
For UK climate now, my timeline would be
Pre 1988 – before Thatcher’s Damascene conversion
1988-1997– to Rio, to Rio again….
1997-2008 – muddling to the CCA
2008 to 2015 – From Copenhagen to “cut the green crap”
2016 to the present – whoops, apocalypse. But we’ll decarbonise!
Here’s a page of acronyms
Here’s a timeline
Here’s an inevitably incomplete and out-of-date page of references
marchudson.net 