Latest news with #Claire Coutinho
The Sun
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Sun
‘Bonkers' UN court ruling may allow countries to sue each other for climate reparations
COUNTRIES could soon be able to sue each other for climate reparations after a 'bonkers' court decision. The International Court of Justice ruling paves the way for poorer nations to launch multi-billion Pound compensation cases against rich powers like Britain. 2 The move sparked fury last night, with the Tories branding the top UN court's proclamation 'insane' and Reform UK warning it hands a blank cheque to foreign governments. Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho said: 'We have to put Britain's interests first. 'The Government must make clear it sees no basis for this ruling to be acted upon.' Reform UK's Richard Tice fumed: 'This is another bonkers non-binding advisory judgment by the ICJ. 'They absurdly said we should give up the Chagos islands. 'They just hate us.' The judges said governments can be held responsible for climate damage — even if it stems from historic emissions pumped out decades ago. The court's opinion is non-binding, but legal experts say it could trigger real-world lawsuits as early as next week. The legal case was cooked up by law students from Pacific islands who claimed wealthy countries failed them. Flora Vano from Vanuatu island, said: 'The ICJ has recognised what we have lived through — our suffering, resilience and right to our future.' Keir Starmer's deranged drive for Net Zero with eco-zealot Ed Miliband is a threat to UK's national security- here's why The UK and others argued deals, such as the 2015 Paris Agreement, were enough but the court rejected that. Judge Iwasawa Yuji ruled not hitting the toughest climate targets would breach international law and said even countries outside the Paris pact must still protect the planet. He admitted it would be hard to determine who caused which part of climate change. Natural disasters, such as the 6.5-magnitude earthquake in Colombia in June, have also been linked to climate change. The ICJ's previous advisory ruling to hand back the Chagos Island to Mauritius was followed by the UK. 2
Telegraph
18-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
We'll stop Nimbys from blocking nuclear power stations, say Tories
Nimbys will be stopped from blocking nuclear power stations in their area under Tory plans. The party wants to end the 'absurd' blocking of new nuclear sites through environmental impact assessments or regulations on habitats, and would make it impossible to challenge a new power station in court. The Tories have submitted amendments to the Government's Planning and Infrastructure Bill that would exempt nuclear power stations from being blocked or delayed on environmental grounds, to speed up energy production in the UK. They accused Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, of presiding over 'the highest prices for offshore wind in a decade' and called for more nuclear power to meet the UK's growing demand for electricity. The rule changes would see planning officers ignore all environmental considerations when building a new nuclear site, which is likely to anger locals and lead to public opposition. However, the party said it would also stop 'anti-growth activist groups from using lawfare to block or delay development and pushing up costs' by exempting the ministerial consent for new power stations from judicial review. Writing for The Telegraph, Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, said the new Hinkley Point C power station in Somerset is set to be the most expensive in history because of 'bureaucracy and rampant lawfarism'. '[There is] Endless lawfare, environmental paperwork, and legal challenges that do little to protect nature but create plenty of expensive work for planning consultants and pencil-pushing bureaucrats,' she said. 'Every single delay and absurd mitigation measure adds more cost.' The amendments would only become law with the support of Labour MPs, which is not expected to happen. Labour has previously said it will reform the same rules raised by the Conservatives, but will not exempt them from judicial review or all environmental assessments. In February, Downing Street pointed to a 30,000-page environmental assessment that Hinkley Point planners were required to produce to receive permission to build. The last new power station was constructed in the UK in 1995, and while domestic demand for electricity has grown many renewable energy sources are not expected to start producing power until the next decade. Responding to the Conservative proposal, Sam Richards, chief executive of pro-growth campaign group Britain Remade, said the UK had the 'worst of both worlds' with a planning system that does not protect nature and slows down infrastructure projects. 'These amendments are radical, but the status quo where safe, clean nuclear power projects are delayed and made more expensive due to repeated legal challenges and poorly drafted environmental legislation is intolerable,' he said. 'Nuclear power isn't just safe, it is also low carbon. It also has the smallest land footprint of any form of energy. Without nuclear power we have to turn to sources that take up more land and impact nature more.' No more fish discos – cheap, reliable energy must come first By Claire Coutinho It's no secret that I'm a fan of nuclear power. In government, the Conservatives ended a 30-year moratorium on new nuclear, with two new plants consented, a third agreed and a fleet of next-generation smaller reactors on the way. While Labour is paying lip-service to continuing that work, they have downgraded our ambitions by scrapping our 24GW target, the third nuclear plant I had agreed on Anglesey in Wales, and downgrading our ambitions for our small modular reactor programme. This is because Ed Miliband's ideological obsession with wind and solar farms has made him blind to their soaring costs and the challenges they pose for our beautiful but small islands. This is an enormous mistake. It's time to double down on nuclear, not scale it back. Nuclear can provide us with the stable, reliable, 24/7 power that we need if we want to have a prosperous nation and support new energy hungry industries like AI. Only nuclear gives us a secure supply chain that can give us real energy independence, without having to import more and more solar panels, batteries and critical minerals from coal-powered China. And crucially it is better for nature, using less than 0.1 per cent of the land required by wind and solar farms. Choosing a nuclear future is our best chance at protecting the glorious British countryside we all love – and it produces zero emissions to boot. We need to bring costs down The one problem? We need to bring costs down. Hinkley Point C is set to be the most expensive nuclear power station in history. Not because of the technology – Hinkley C is almost 70 per cent more expensive than a project building the very same safe reactor design in Finland. It is, in part, because of our own bureaucracy and rampant lawfarism. Endless lawfare, environmental paperwork, and legal challenges that do little to protect nature but create plenty of expensive work for planning consultants and pencil-pushing bureaucrats. Every single delay and absurd mitigation measure adds more cost. The prime example is the 'fish disco' at Hinkley – where EDF has spent eight years negotiating the installation of 288 underwater loudspeakers, at the cost of millions of pounds, to prevent one fishing trawler's worth of fish from swimming into their water pipes. Today, we are putting a stop to that. We have tabled radical amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to stop a system which puts its addiction to paperwork above the national interest and our need for cheap, reliable energy. No more environmental impact assessments 30 times longer than the complete works of Shakespeare. No more pointless, gold-plated fish discos. No more bogus judicial reviews from anti-growth activist groups who just want to kill off the infrastructure that is critical to our national and energy security. I have every sympathy with those who truly want to protect nature. I believe, as does Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, that our love of our natural world sits deep in our national soul. But this self-defeating, sclerotic system is nature's own worst enemy. In making it impossible to build cheap nuclear on a small number of sites, we will just end up building thousands upon thousands of wind turbines and solar farms in every corner of the country. Nuclear produces, by far, more power per acre than any other source of energy. This could not be more important on a small island like ours. Dr John Constable of the Renewable Energy Foundation has calculated that wind and solar farms use up to 3,000 times more land than nuclear to produce the same amount of energy. Abundant nuclear is not a pipe dream In some areas, up to 8 per cent of all land is already covered by solar farm applications – and this is only going to soar as Ed Miliband's targets mean building more than ever before, faster than ever before. Cheap, abundant nuclear is not a pipe dream. Some of the cheapest and cleanest electricity in Europe can be found in France, Finland and Sweden and all of them rely on nuclear for baseload. As ever, it is the green anti-growthers who are shooting themselves in the foot by opposing the only form of cheap, reliable, secure, clean energy. It's no secret the West is in trouble – post-Covid debt, challenging demographics and stagnating growth are putting pressure on governments of all colours. But in nuclear power, Britain has a ready-made escape plan. We just need politicians brave enough to change the law to allow us to carry it through. Britain is in touching distance of a new era of prosperity. With cheap, abundant, reliable nuclear energy, we could end the poverty mindset that says British consumers should rearrange their lives to suit an energy system that depends on the weather. We could take the brakes off new energy hungry data centres and even, dare I say, let people have air conditioning.
