The antics of the climate clique
Director's column
9 Jan 2026
Written By Andrew Montford
The Energy Security and Net Zero select committee is currently holding an inquiry entitled “Supporting the energy transition”. It’s very much what you might expect – panel after panel of prominent members of the green blob, with not a dissenting voice heard, either among the witnesses or the panel members.
This is no surprise – most select committees are simply choreographed stageshows, carefully designed to maintain narratives and suppress inconvenient truths. Nevertheless, the current inquiry was interesting from a sociological perspective. Take the two panels the committee invited to give oral evidence back in September. Across the two hearings, they invited:
Angharad Hopkinson, a political campaigner from Greenpeace
Lorraine Whitmarsh, from the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations
Stephanie Draper, a climate campaigner
Roger Harrabin, ex-BBC Energy and Environment Analyst
Bob Ward, PR bod at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change
Rebecca Willis, ex-Green Alliance, and now an academic at Lancaster University.
https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/the-climate-clique