With my return to posting, I sense a new, yet real, opportunity for all of us in the UK who argue that ‘global warming’ - as distinct from climate change - is the dangerous nonsense of the age to begin to redirect British politics on this issue.

The sheer vapidity of the G8 Summit in Japan demonstrated once again, as if this were not already abundantly apparent, that world political leaders will not, and indeed can not, do anything significant to reduce so-called ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions. In the UK, this truth is daily underscored by a Government and a Labour Party that have seemingly lost control of the political agenda, from energy to schools, and which, accordingly, are in serious, if not terminal, decline. We are thus likely to be spared any further damaging and precipitate actions in the name of ‘global warming’ from this wounded animal [e.g., ‘Brown defends fuel duty decision’, BBC Online Politics News, July 16)].

The Tories

The focus must therefore shift to the Conservatives and to the Liberal Democrats. Despite the superficial ‘greening’ and eco-toffery of David Cameron, the Leader of the Conservatives, I know personally that a significant percentage of his party, including MPs and Councillors, remains deeply sceptical about the science, the economics, and, more importantly, the politics of ‘global warming’, a fact strongly supported yesterday by a report on a new survey in The Guardian [‘Many Tory MPs still sceptical on climate change’, The Guardian, July 16]. This is encouraging, as “... a third of Tory MPs who responded to the survey questioned the existence of climate change and its link to human activity. Two-thirds said tackling climate change should not be a priority for local councils.”

I thus believe it is time to broach the Conservatives head on over this issue, and to build on innate Tory scepticism, while, at the same time, seeking a realistic policy from them on the future of UK energy. Moreover, the Tories could well be surprised at the political dividends to be gained from adopting a more realistic policy towards climate change. Millions of sensible, down-to-earth folk, not to mention hard-hit businesses, are currently seething over attempts to use the ‘global warming’ hysteria to raise taxes and to increase costs, especially where these are retrospective and retrogressive on the poor. Such folk are crying out for a rational economic party to take a more balanced and critical approach.

The Lib-Dems

Somewhat amazingly, this trend is even apparent in the wettest and weakest of the three main political parties, the Liberal Democrats, where, only this morning, their fresh-faced, undergraduate-style leader, Nick Clegg, has reversed long-standing policy to call for “tax cuts for those who need it most”, as he prepares to present details of a new pledge to reduce the overall tax burden [‘Lib Dems in taxation cut pledge’, original headline, BBC Online Politics News, July 17]. Of course, Clegg will continue to talk vaguely about compensating ‘green taxes’, but, in reality, he is encouragingly reverting to type, as a supporter of the so-called ‘Orange Book Liberals’, a group of prominent Liberal Democrats who have called for the party to shift to a more pro-market, less regulative agenda [see: ‘Lib Dems call for pro-market move’, BBC Online Politics News, September 2, 2004]. Clegg was himself a contributor in 2004 to The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, in which he offered market liberal solutions for the reform of European institutions.

Targeting The Tories

But, above all, I believe we should now begin to try to turn the Conservative Party towards a more sensible agenda on climate change. This process has already been wonderfully assisted by the former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer (June 1983 to October 1989), Nigel Lawson, with his elegant critique of ‘global warming’, An Appeal to Reason. A Cool Look at Global Warming (Duckworth, 2008), and by a series of excoriating attacks on the ‘global warming’ trope in the more Conservative newspapers, such as The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, and The Daily Express. I believe that this process will become even more persuasive if, as is being widely predicted, world climate enters a ‘cooling phase’. Cameron will, of course, continue to try his utmost to appear ‘greenish’ until the next General Election (he has to win over yet more Liberal Democrat and Green Party voters in certain parts of the country), but I fully expect that the tide of ‘greenery’ can be stemmed, if and when he achieves office.

As economic and political climate-change realists, this must be our prime political target. Unless Labour and Gordon Brown recover dramatically, which appears to be increasingly unlikely, they will do little more on ‘global warming’, while the Liberal Democrats are being squeezed by the Conservatives and appear to be changing tack somewhat in any case.

It is, accordingly, time to focus on the Conservative Party as our best hope for the development of more critical and rational policies on climate change. The credit crunch, the cost of energy, increasing unemployment, inflation rising steadily above 3.8%, near-recession, if not a full technical recession, the reduced competitiveness of UK business, and the embarrassing inability of politicians to reduce emissions should all focus the Conservative mind.

There can be no more pseudo-consensus on ‘global warming’; the British people require, and demand, a genuine political choice. It is time for the Tories to become Conservatives again, and to follow their founder, Sir Robert Peel [pictured above], adopting “the redress of real grievances“, but avoiding “a perpetual vortex of agitation”(*).

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(*) Quotations from the famous Tamworth Manifesto of 1834.