February 3, 2012

reaction from the science and engineering community to the resignation of Chris Huhne

After the news that Chris Huhne, the former coalition minister for energy and climate change, had resigned from Cabinet due to charges being brought against him, the SMC gathered responses from the science and engineering community.

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on climate Change and the Environment, said:

“I am personally sorry to see Mr Huhne leave this post. He has, among other things, adopted a very robust approach when lobbied by climate change ‘sceptics’, as his recent exchange of correspondence with Lord Lawson has shown. I hope that his successor will be similarly robust and insist that UK climate change policy should be based on the best available scientific evidence, rather than on the propaganda of ‘sceptic’ lobby groups.

“I am also personally grateful to Mr Huhne because in 2006 he made a speech in Parliament defending me against inaccurate claims by ExxonMobil that I was sacked by the Royal Society for raising objections to the company’s inaccurate statements about climate change science.”

Prof Brian Hoskins, Director of Grantham Institute for Climate Change, said:

“”Chris Huhne has played an important role in keeping the UK in a leading position on the climate change issue and I am sure his successor will want to continue this role.””

Prof Jim Skea, Research Director at the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), said:

“This is a critical time for energy and climate change policy. Continuity will be vital to ensure that the pace of policy-making is maintained in key areas like the Green Deal, Electricity Market Reform and meeting carbon budgets. Chris Huhne’s successor faces huge challenges going forward and needs to get a grip on a complicated brief very quickly.”