absolutely. you have to ask the question why did the government do things like cancel the home insulation programme back in 2010 that would have, by the time i got to this crisis, would ve put it in a better place, and has some of the policy attitudes on things like renewable energy actually added to our problem now because we have not developed alternative sources? so we can talk about licensing fossil fuels as we heard from the australian journalist on dateline earlier, available on the bbc iplayer if you want it and repeated over the beacon, she was making the point that the australian government, federal government which has been campaigning for restrictions because of climate change has now also licensed extra fossil fuel development, which fossilfuel development, which is all fine, but that will take years before we actually see the benefits of that. from that point if you come in a sense, if we do have to have rationing, it s because we brought this on ourselves a bit, isn t it?
carbon emissions, why not? of climate emergency does not give the president a lot more power. it gives him limited power to do a few more things. it s actually a very important symbolic move where it says that we are in a cerebral situation here and we need to act. the more important things we need to see if i didn t do substantively are walking new fossil fuel development by not issuing permits to see biden do. and enforce existing regulations on dirty facilities. that s the really tough stuff we re expecting the president to do. professor stokes, i know particularly at this point in the political cycle in the united states, everything is in some ways about the midterms. i m just intrigued to know your views on this. what is the move music care about the issues of climate change?
thoughts on food security right now. will food security is a real challenge because russia and ukraine control about 30 percent of the week and a majority of the sunflower oil and that has spillover effects and even though there big week growers like america india candidate, is still raising prices at a load up that season was trapped the boxy due to russia s embargo with a black see and so it is a big issue for families here but it s a bigger issue than a third world when the biden administration on top of i think not supporting humanitarian weight that might be best is also talking about curtailing a fossil fuels of those produce, nigeria, you could be having riots in nigeria you shut all fossil fuel development in the country and you have this tremendous shortage of wheat and other products because of the inflation ukraine. molly: when we talk about the long game, the forecast from the world bank, just the last week,
europe offers another reminder to us the blocking fossil fuel development here will keep carpet in the ground. it merely hence a strategic weapon to dictators that they will turn around and use against us. we know that we have over 600,000 barrels that come in per date that we buy from russia. so there s a lot of talk you a clean energy and that kind of thing but the fact is we are still dependent on also fossil fuel and we are buying it from people who are not good actors. that s exactly right. we are essentially funding but russia is right now doing against the ukrainian people. i was going to point out that i would ve liked to have her board about the iranian state in the only time we heard about it was when president biden misspoke and he mentioned the iranians. but i think that energy independence is american sovereignty. energy independence allows the united states to not get entangled in things that we don t want to.