It was hardly a perfect film, but I keep thinking of Don’t Look Up. In its depiction of a world that stubbornly refuses to heed the warnings of an imminent planetary disaster, it was perhaps too on the nose. But these days, reality itself is too on the nose.

This week served up ample evidence, on both sides of the Atlantic. In Britain, like much of Europe, the all-consuming concern has been intense, intolerable heat, with temperature records shattered and swathes of the country under the highest state of alert. For the first time, red warnings were issued in the UK for three consecutive days. Schools have closed; nights have become sleepless, with the mercury rising to meet the technical definition of “tropical”. There are wildfires in Derbyshire. All this in a temperate country in June.

And where is our politics? It has moved on swiftly from what would once have been a rare, even epochal event – the resignation of a prime minister – shifting focus to the coming man, Andy Burnham, and specifically the question of who he might appoint as chancellor. Burnham world is said to be divided over whether it should be Ed Miliband, with some pushing him as a proven Whitehall operator and ideological ally of the next PM, while others fear he would spook the bond markets.

But the loudest argument heard against the present energy secretary, pushed especially forcefully this week, is his advocacy of net zero: the pursuit of zero carbon emissions by 2050. At a rightwing conference in London dubbed the “anti-woke Davos”, Kemi Badenoch told delegates there was a “villain” to blame for Britain’s economic woes. “His name is Ed Miliband and he has made our country poorer,” she said to applause.

The gathering had been convened by the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, whose backers include the owner of GB News and a string of fossil fuel companies. Among the officials from the current US administration in attendance was Donald Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, himself a former fossil fuel........

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