Well that was a bit of a diplomatic floater. Ed Miliband’s global energy shindig started yesterday at London’s Lancaster House.
The gilt-chandeliered room filled with climate-change illuminati and renewable-energy snoots from every corner of the civilised world.
Everyone was feeling really good about themselves, basking in their success after a spirited debate with a woman from Barbados who warned about the impending sinking of her island due to global warming. That’s when a representative from the Trump administration took the stage.
The official confidently announced that the United States, now under new leadership, wasn’t concerned about achieving Net Zero emissions. They were determined to continue burning fossil fuels, dismissing any opposition as a suicidal national stance.
He offered this view as an act of Godly love. Oil and gas were a Christian leg-up to the world’s poor and needy.
His words were met with a deafening silence. No applause, no jeers – just a chilling stillness that one might liken to the awkward hush after a butler accidentally dropped a hot pork rissole down Lady Bracknell’s dress during lunch service.
Energy secretary Miliband had made the first speech on a morning of glutinous virtue. Hailing the ‘distinguished delegates’, Red Ed honked and spluttered his way through a spiel about ‘the shifting global landscape’ and how ‘countries need to collaborate’ to overcome energy-security problems.
‘Shared challenges invite shared solutions,’ schnorfed our hero, spraying the front row with spittle as he bared his cow-catcher teeth. ‘We are the optimists!’ he added. How cruelly this sanguine mood would soon be shattered.
Energy secretary Ed Miliband (pictured) had made the first speech on a morning of glutinous virtue
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and IEA Executive Director, Fatih Birol, on day one of the Future of Energy Security at Lancaster House in London, Britain, 24 April 2025
Mr Miliband kept referring to his great friend ‘Fatty’. This turned out to be Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, a global quango.
Mr Birol, in rather heavily accented English, gave a chewy lecture about his ‘three golden rules’, the first of which was diversification. ‘Not to put all da eggs in vun basget,’ said Fatty.
The bien-pensants nodded knowingly, veritable connoisseurs of such fare. Rule two was ‘predictability’ (this has possibly never been a problem with Fatty, for he was no sparkler); rule three was ‘de kooperation’, which meant countries not competing too much with one another.
Conference’s moderator Francine Lacqua, from Bloomberg telly, launched the first plenary session with various excellencies: Spain’s minister for ecological transition, Iraq’s oil minister, a chatty Egyptian, an impenetrable Malaysian, a lad from Colombia.
Iraq and Egypt were keen on crude oil but said this subtly enough not to cause offence.
The Colombian’s English-language interpreter had a growly voice worthy of any Spaghetti Western bandido. I was so gripped by it that I failed to follow the content of his speech.
After windy pieties from the floor we moved to the second plenary session: a smooth Frenchman, the Barbadian dame and Tommy Joyce, acting assistant secretary at Donald Trump’s energy department.
He was in a pinstripe suit of a type Marks & Sparks stopped selling a few years ago. Add a Mormon haircut, college-kid accent and a clipboard speech he served on the assembly’s snoots like a bailiff’s writ.
Mr Birol (pictured, right) , in rather heavily accented English, gave a chewy lecture about his ‘three golden rules’, the first of which was diversification
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, center, meets Britain’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, left, and Fatih Birol, right, Executive Director at the International Energy Agency (IEA) for day one of the International Summit on the Future of Energy Security at Lancaster House in London, England, Thursday April 24, 2025
The White House intended to ‘bring back common sense’ on ‘so-called renewables’. Joe Biden was attacked, as was China, which had too much of a grip on the wind turbines industry.
Net Zero and corporate wokery caused human suffering. The US would have no truck with such lunacies.
Every other speaker was clapped. Mr Joyce put down his clipboard to the racket you hear at rush hour on planet Jupiter. The Bloomberg TV woman finally broke the silence by saying, somewhat stickily: ‘The messaging is pretty clear.’
Later Mr Joyce returned to the fray to say that ‘we remember God’s golden rule that we should love our neighbour as ourself and let others lift themselves out of poverty’ by using oil.
Sir Keir Starmer made a fraudulent speech. The EU’s Ursula von der Leyen queened over the conference as if she owned the place. Fatty repeated his golden rules. But after Trumpster Tommy it was all pointless.
