Minutes
Chichester Climate Change Group Meeting, 1st October 2025
Friends Meeting House, upstairs meeting room, Priory Road, Chichester, 14.00 to 16.00
Agenda
- Apologies
- Minutes and Matters Arising from the last meeting, 10th Sept.
- News Items including new book recommendations including a presentation by JD
- A short history of scientific discovery about the relationship between carbon emissions and global warming/climate change and evidence to the contrary. CM
- Geothermal Energy and its place in the energy mix – a presentation CM
- A postscript on methane emissions – MC
- AOB
- Date of Next Meeting
- Apologies : Ruth Keeley, Andy Rackham, John Leslie, Anna Glanville-Hearson, Debbie Cart
- Minutes of 10th Sept meeting agreed. Matters arising – Letter sent to Andrew Griffiths MP and copied to Jess Brown-Fuller. Response received from Andre Griffiths – supports action on Methane but didn’t respond to the specific requests in the letter.
- News Items; Jan Davis gave a presentation on a new book by Hannah Richie – “Clearing the Air”
- It describes itself as a “Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change – in 50 Questions and Answers. Hannah is Senior Researcher in the Programme for Global development at the University of Oxford. She is also Deputy Editor of the publication “Our World in Data” and has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Statistical Society.Jan gave some examples from the book in his presentation. Colin McKenna has also read several sections from the book and described it as a very useful book in beginning to understand some of the complexities of climate change and in debunking many of the climate change myths.
- Mike recommended watching a few videos which are available on YouTube and in which contain interviews given by Finland”s president, Alexander Stubb. If you’re looking for clarity about the current world order and the forces at play his speech to the UN is seminal and easy to understand.Mike also mentioned the poor enforcement of trawling in Britains areas which have been designated to recover from over fishing by such methods but which politicians seem to allow too many exemptions. He quoted from a Guardian Newspaper article. Recovery of these marine protected areas is vital to biodiversity, climate carbon capture and the sustainability of the fishing industry in the future.
- Tom described the En Roads (MIT) project software and how it allows investigation of the effects of policy choices on carbon emissions. He will be giving a presentation of the power of this software in the main hall of Friends Meeting House on 24th October at 11.00
- Colin’s presentation reminded everyone that climate science is a longstanding, established science which is open to scrutiny and challenge from the scientific community and so far there hasn’t been any challenge except from those who don’t offer the same degree of openness and scrutiny/peer review. While he urged we all keep an open mind he also could find no valid scientific evidence to back up the more common criticisms of climate change science.
- Colin’s presentation highlighted the potential of geothermal energy for solving the residual problems of having a low carbon option to compete with nuclear power in the future but the cost of expensive drilling and the uncertainty of tapping the source make it a risky investment. This was also apparent from the Dave Borlace video on the subject which he showed. It did, however prompt discussion around the room.
- Mike gave a postscript to discussion at previous meetings about methane generation and the benefit of cutting down on methane in the short term during a period of continuing increases in carbon emissions and increasing concentration of carbon in the atmosphere.
- The meeting on the 14th November was again highlighted.
- date of next meeting 5th November. Susan kindly agreed to chair the next meeting with support from Mike. I will facilitate distribution of Susan’s agenda before the event. So please let Susan have notice of any agenda items you would like to see at the next meeting. If we have a meeting in December it would be on 3rd Dec but our current meeting room at Friends is not available that day so another venue would have to be booked. However, we would book ahead for January through to March 26 for the first Wednesday in the month.
CM v2