The UK’s right-leaning newspapers have unleashed a huge wave of editorials attacking energy secretary Ed Miliband since last year’s general election, Carbon Brief analysis reveals.
In the first half of 2024, newspapers published 16 editorials – articles that are considered the newspaper’s formal “voice” – attacking Miliband. In the second half of the year, since Labour’s election win, this increased to 45 – roughly two every week.
Right-leaning outlets such as the Sun and the Daily Mail repeatedly called Miliband an “eco-zealot”, a “madman” and a “hysterical eco-obsessive”, due to his support for net-zero policies.
More broadly, there were 368 editorials published in UK newspapers last year that were about climate change and energy. This is the second-highest annual tally recorded by Carbon Brief’s long-running project, which tracks UK newspaper editorials back to 2011.
In 2024, unprecedented numbers of these editorials opposed climate action in general, as well as renewable energy, specifically.
As the new Labour government pursues a clean power system by 2030 and other net-zero policies, right-leaning newspapers argued that such measures would be costly and harmful.
This continues a recent trend of the right-leaning press rejecting net-zero policies, after briefly embracing climate action during Boris Johnson’s Conservative government.
Attacking Miliband
In his role as energy security and net-zero secretary, Miliband has been the face of Labour’s plan to achieve a clean power system by 2030 and is a long-standing and staunch defender of climate policies in general.
Last year, newspapers such as the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph continued to push back against net-zero policies, with much of their criticism personally focused on Miliband himself.
Carbon Brief’s analysis identified 61 editorials that directly criticised Miliband in 2024. All of these, barring one published in the Independent, were in right-leaning newspapers.
A particular uptick followed the general election on 4 July, which saw Miliband enter government for the first time in 14 years. Newspapers published 45 critical editorials between election day and the end of the year, amounting to nearly two a week, on average, as the chart below shows.
By far the biggest critic of Miliband was the Sun, which published 29 editorials attacking him. This was followed by the Daily Mail, with 12, and the Daily Telegraph, with nine. The Sunday editions of these three newspapers also published a handful of critical editorials.
The favoured editorial criticism was that Miliband is a “muddled climate zealot”, prone to “demented fantasies”, who places the “mad rush to net-zero” ahead of – the newspapers claim – more pressing issues. Newspapers alleged – often with little supporting evidence – that “his” policies will lead to higher energy bills and the “lights going out”.
This claim was often in response to Miliband stating that renewables would help curb the UK’s reliance on expensive gas, as well as bring down energy prices.
There were several calls for prime minister Keir Starmer to “rein in” Miliband, calling him a “drag” on the Labour government.
Such specific and personal attacks are not directed at all government ministers. As a comparison, Carbon Brief only identified two editorials in 2024 that took specific aim at Miliband’s Conservative predecessor, Claire Coutinho, even though she held the role for half of the year.
(The criticism of Coutinho was also fairly mild in comparison to the claims about Miliband, focusing on the difficulties of building nuclear power. For example, the Sun said she needed a “reality check” and that “both main parties have been an abject failure” on nuclear.)
Miliband, who introduced the landmark Climate Change Act during his first stint as climate secretary in 2008, has long been a target for the right-leaning press and climate sceptics. The same newspapers criticising him now ran a similarly personal campaign to oppose Miliband becoming prime minister, when he was leader of the Labour party in 2015.
Record climate opposition
In total, Carbon Brief identified 368 editorials that touched on climate and energy issues in 15 UK newspapers last year, averaging one per day
Of these, 169 dealt explicitly with climate change. In an election year that saw Labour take power with a clean energy-focused manifesto, many of these editorials referred to measures the new government was pledging or starting to implement.
According to Carbon Brief’s analysis, a record 44 of the editorials published in 2024 argued for less climate action. This is the third record-breaking year in a row for such editorials in UK newspapers, as the chart below shows.
While there were still more than twice as many supportive editorials calling for more climate action, they were heavily skewed towards certain publications.
In total, 80 of the 99 editorials calling for “more action” were published in left-leaning and “centrist” publications, with the Guardian alone publishing 40 of them.
Right-leaning titles, which tend to have higher readerships, published just 19 editorials advocating for climate action, 14 of which were in the Times. The Sun, which is one of the UK’s most-read daily newspapers, did not publish any editorials supporting climate action.
For a brief period, peaking in 2020, these right-leaning publications appeared to have shifted in their attitudes. Publications with long histories of publishing climate-sceptic journalism, such as the Sun and the Daily Express, made public commitments to cover climate change.
This coincided with the Conservative government of Boris Johnson, which made major climate commitments, and the build-up to the UK hosting the COP26 climate summit.
However, since 2020 there has been a steep decline in support for climate action by these newspapers. As the chart below shows, the share of their editorials supporting and opposing climate policies is now back where it was a decade ago.
Carbon Brief’s analysis also assesses the themes present in newspaper editorials.
It shows that, once again, the most common argument against climate action was that there would be a negative economic impact of climate policies. Last year, 35 climate-related editorials, or one-fifth of the total, made this argument.
The “cost of net-zero” has been a key talking point in the right-leaning press. This can be seen in editorial headlines such as “the untenable costs of net-zero” and “it’s time MPs were honest about the true cost of net-zero”, in the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times, respectively.
Economic benefits of climate policies, on the other hand, were mentioned in 29 climate-related editorials – 16% of the total. Analysis for the UK government has repeatedly demonstrated that switching to clean technologies will save people money, offsetting upfront investment costs, as well as delivering significant social benefits.
Another common negative theme – mentioned in around a sixth of climate editorials – was criticism of climate advocates, from Just Stop Oil to Ed Miliband.
Right-leaning newspapers frequently denounced such advocates for “green piety” and “hypocrisy”, or called them “fanatics” and “extremists”.
Renewable pushback
Carbon Brief analysed 79 editorials that focused specifically on three major energy technologies – renewables, nuclear power and fracking.
Fracking has fallen off the political agenda since plans to overturn a ban on the practice came to nothing in 2022. Only two editorials mentioned it at all in 2024.
Nuclear power was mentioned in 20 editorials, with none expressing anti-nuclear sentiments. Notably, the technology enjoyed support across the political spectrum of newspapers, as it has in previous years.
Renewable energy was far more divisive. Mirroring the results for climate action more generally, 2024 saw a record 25 UK newspaper editorials opposing wind, solar and other renewable energy sources. As the chart below shows, there was also a dip in the number of editorials actively supporting renewables.
All but one of the editorials opposing renewables were published in right-leaning newspapers, particularly the Daily Mail – with 11 – and the Sun, with seven.
Again, the supposed economic cost of renewables was the main reason cited. The Daily Mail said “eye-watering subsidies” were required to support renewables, while the Sun called the government’s plan to cut reliance on expensive gas, in favour of renewables a “ruinous fantasy”.
In contrast, some newspapers made the economic case for renewables. In an editorial about wind power, the Guardian said that “exploiting the British Isles’ most obvious natural asset is environmentally and economically the right thing to do”.
Methodology
This is a 2024 update of previous analysis conducted for the period 2011-2021 by Carbon Brief in association with Sylvia Hayes, then a PhD researcher and now a research fellow at the University of Exeter. Previous updates were published in 2022 and 2023.
The count of editorials criticising Ed Miliband was not conducted in previous years.
The full methodology can be found in the original article, including the coding schema used to assess the language and themes used in editorials concerning climate change and energy technologies.
The analysis is based on Carbon Brief’s editorial database, which is regularly updated with leading articles from the UK’s major newspapers.
The post Analysis: UK newspaper editorials attacked Ed Miliband relentlessly throughout 2024 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: UK newspaper editorials attacked Ed Miliband relentlessly throughout 2024
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As well as claiming more than 550 lives, the war between the United States and Israel and Iran threatens to inflict severe economic damage across the world, by pushing up the oil, gas and energy prices.
About a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) passes on ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow stretch of water separating Iran from the Gulf countries.
With Iranian missiles hitting oil and gas sites in the Gulf – including the world’s largest LNG export facility Ras Laffan – and fears that ships may be targeted, Qatar has halted its LNG production and traffic through the Strait has slowed drastically.
The disruption has sent oil and LNG prices surging, raising costs for households and businesses worldwide that rely on fossil fuels for electricity, transport, heating and manufacturing.
In two online briefings – focused on Europe and Asia, respectively – energy analysts warned journalists that prolonged disruption could trigger a global economic crisis. Governments should seek to reduce their reliance on oil and gas – through investments in clean energy and energy efficiency – rather than just seeking non-Gulf oil and gas suppliers, they said.
Seb Kennedy, founding editor of EnergyFlux.News, said the war is “a bonanza for US LNG exporters and a catastrophe for everyone else.” He added that “if this goes on for months and months then [the energy crisis] could be on the scale we saw in 2022”.
Asia hit hardest
Asian economies are expected to bear the brunt as the largest buyers of Qatari LNG. Research by ZeroCarbon Analytics suggests that Japan and South Korea, which get over three-fifths of their energy from oil and gas imports, are among the most vulnerable.
Sam Reynolds, a researcher from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said that Japan’s definition of energy security prioritises diversifying fossil fuel supply over promoting domestic renewables and, while Reynolds said this crisis could change that, he doubts that it will. Both Japan and South Korea are likely to speed up their pursuit of nuclear energy though, he added.
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Several South-East Asian nations – like Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand – have invested in infrastructure to import LNG over the last few years in an attempt to gain energy security by diversifying supply routes beyond natural gas pipelines.
But ZeroCarbon Analytics researcher Amy Kong said that these countries were “seeing the same problems with new dealers” as “all the cards are held by a few LNG suppliers”. As these countries have huge untapped renewable potential, she said that “clean energy – not LNG – would be the key to avoiding impacts from these crises”.
Khondaker Golam, research director at Bangladesh’s Centre for Policy Dialogue, said Bangladesh’s already strained energy system will come under further pressure. In the short term, the government is likely to ration supply and seek LNG cargoes from outside the Gulf. Over time, however, the crisis could accelerate implementation of the country’s rooftop solar programme and other renewable projects.
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China and India are also reliant on Gulf oil and gas and are now exploring alternative suppliers like Russia and, at least in India’s case, Canada and Norway. Over the longer term, Oxford University energy and climate professor Jan Rosenow said that China is also likely to double down on moving away from oil and gas by promoting electric vehicles, batteries and electrifying industries.
Although Europe imports a smaller share of its energy from the Gulf than Asia, it will not be insulated from price shocks. As Asian buyers compete for LNG cargoes – particularly from the US – gas prices will rise across the world, Kennedy added, with Europe already seeing increases.
Europe suffers too
Rosenow said that he was experiencing “deja vu” from when Russia restricted gas supplies to Europe, sparking a global energy crisis. Following that, he said, Europe had “not really managed to scale up the alternatives fast enough”, adding that “now we pay the price for that”.
He cited the example of Germany, where the government last week weakened requirements for buildings to install electric heat pumps instead of gas boilers. “We [in Europe] just haven’t made enough progress in terms of rolling out heat pumps, decarbonising industry and scaling up electric mobility,” he said.
Some in non-Gulf oil and gas producing countries have argued that this disruption justifies more production. Kennedy said the industry would “do everything it can to make that case”, but warned that new projects must consider demand decades ahead. By then, he said, “this conflict has probably long been forgotten about and we’re on to the next one”.
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In the United Kingdom, the government is under pressure from the right-wing opposition and US President Donald Trump to reverse its ban on licenses for new oil and gas fields in the North Sea.
But business secretary Peter Kyle said the crisis showed the UK must “double down” on renewables to protect its “sovereignty” as the crisis has exposed the country’s reliance on fossil fuels “from parts of the world which are fundamentally unstable”.
“We keep on seeing these lived examples of how instability, through regional instability, is creeping into our energy prices for which the British government has no agency”, he said.
Interest rates stymie renewables
But in the short term and without government policy intervention, Morningstar equity analyst Tancrède Fulop told Climate Home News that the crisis is likely to hold back the development of renewables.
This is because rising inflation from higher energy costs is likely to prompt governments to raise the cost of borrowing, he said. As renewables projects typically require large upfront capital investment, higher borrowing costs can undermine profitability.
Gas-fired power plants, by contrast, typically require lower initial investment than solar, wind or hydro, but higher operating costs over time, as fuel must be continuously purchased.
“What we saw between 2022 and 2024 with high inflation, high gas and power prices – a bit similar to today – renewable companies materially underperformed because of those high interest rates,” he said, “so all in all it won’t be as simple as oil and gas prices are surging so it’s good for renewables”.
The post Gulf oil and gas crisis sparks calls for renewable investment appeared first on Climate Home News.
Gulf oil and gas crisis sparks calls for renewable investment
The United States is set to quit the world’s landmark climate convention next February, after the Trump administration formally notified the UN of its previously announced decision to withdraw.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres communicated last Friday that the UN treaty depository had received Washington’s formal notice to leave the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Adopted in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit, the climate treaty is the cornerstone of global efforts to curb climate change and tackle its impacts.
The US withdrawal will take effect on 27 February 2027 – one year after the formal notification – as required by the terms of the convention.
The US, the world’s second-largest emitter, will be the first nation to formally exit the treaty and the only one recognised by the UN outside of it.
‘Colossal own goal’
In January, President Donald Trump, who has called climate change a “con job”, announced his administration’s intention to quit the UNFCCC and 65 other international organisations and instruments, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the most authoritative global voice on climate science, and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the world’s largest multilateral climate fund.
A White House factsheet said President Trump was ending US participation in international organisations that “undermine America’s independence and waste taxpayer dollars on ineffective or hostile agendas”.
“Many of these bodies promote radical climate policies, global governance, and ideological programmes that conflict with US sovereignty and economic strength,” it added.
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At the time, the UNFCCC chief Simon Stiell called the US decision to leave the convention “a colossal own goal which will leave the US less secure and less prosperous”.
“While all other nations are stepping forward together, this latest step back from global leadership, climate cooperation and science can only harm the US economy, jobs and living standards, as wildfires, floods, mega-storms and droughts get rapidly worse,” he added.
Relinquishing obligations
At the end of January 2026, the US already formally left the Paris Agreement, under which countries agreed in 2015 to try to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to issue regular emissions-reduction plans. Trump pulled the US out of the accord in 2020 before President Biden re-joined it in 2021.
While the Trump administration had effectively already disengaged from global climate action immediately after its inauguration, its formal departure from the UNFCCC will free it from formal obligations, including reporting detailed greenhouse gas emissions inventories and providing funding for the convention.
The US already stopped funding the UNFCCC and failed to submit its emissions data last year. The federal administration also sent no delegates to the COP30 summit in Brazil last November.
Washington remains involved in other international negotiations with climate implications – including talks on a UN treaty to curb plastics pollution and efforts to price emissions in the shipping sector – where it has sought to slow progress and block binding global measures.
A route back in?
The US could potentially rejoin the UNFCCC in future, likely under a different administration, but there are different views on how complicated that process would be.
The US Senate ratified the UN climate convention – with no opposition – in 1992 and some experts believe a future president could rejoin the UNFCCC within 90 days of a formal decision based on the original “advice and consent” of the Senate.
But other legal experts told Carbon Brief that theory has never been tested in court and a new two-third majority vote in the Senate might be required, which would be challenging with the vast majority of Republican Senators currently opposed to membership.
The post US set to exit UN climate convention in February 2027 appeared first on Climate Home News.
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