Will Britain pay for the Industrial Revolution? New climate change lawsuits could make it possible - warns Toby Neal

Because the compensation demands are coming. We'll soon be in the dock for our crimes against the world.

In a ground-breaking decision, the International Court of Justice has paved the way for countries to sue each other for the part they have played in climate change.

All round the globe eyes are suddenly lighting up with dollar signs. This is easy money for those victim countries who will be getting together the legal papers to slap on those culpable industrialised nations, particularly the UK, which led the way in pumping out planet-destroying smoke from foundries and factories while exploiting and enslaving members of the working class.

The claimants will have plenty of support within Britain from those who strive to ensure we are all suitably ashamed of our past and should be held accountable through the paying of exemplary reparations.

There's a sentiment that them's that's guilty should pay, and to be British today is to be guilty of something.

Yet how can it be fair for Welsh hill farmers, apple growers in Kent, and tree planters in the Scottish lowlands to be slapped with extra tax to pay for climate change compensation to faraway nations? They have done nothing to contribute to the problem, although a distinction will have to be drawn between arable farmers and those farmers who breed livestock which breaks wind, releasing gasses which contribute to global warming.

There will be no exemption though for folk from the Black Country and the Ironbridge Gorge, who will surely be in the sights of the judges as they sift through the history books to decide who should be held to account for the environmental crimes of their ancestors.

Indeed, the Ironbridge Gorge flags up its guilt by shamelessly billing itself as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. And older residents of the Black Country will remember how that area was routinely wreathed in smoke before Margaret Thatcher cleaned up its act by closing down traditional industries.

We haven't even mentioned the role of coal miners, although they could claim they were forced to do it. 

It just cries out for one of those full, national, judge-led public inquiries into things which happened long ago which Sir Keir Starmer is such a fan of. It could be achieved at a cut-price cost by taking the opportunity to roll it together with the Orgreave public inquiry, which also involved miners.

As this ICJ judgment makes it open season for every country to sue every other country, Britain needs to get its snout in the trough given that the UK's contribution to global emissions is less than one per cent. We can try suing China, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

...........

I'm back from a couple of days in Wales where my brother and sister-in-law introduced me to the concept of a folding canoe.

It's made of plastic and by an origami-style process can be folded up so that it can be carried in a sort of big backpack, and transported around in the rear of a car. 

For some reason - mistaken identity, perhaps, or a false memory - they were under the misapprehension that I was an able canoeist. Consequently they were very keen to demonstrate the contraption and give me the opportunity to have a go. I didn't want to disappoint them.

Sadly during the construction process I pulled off a strap. It literally came off in my hand, I told them. Then I headed into waters in what must have been at least a Force 2 on the Beaufort scale, using the paddle upside down. 

After doing just enough pootling around to ensure honour was satisfied, a wave - a mountainous wave from my perspective - tipped me out of the canoe into water, no harm being done a) because I was wearing a lifejacket and b) the water was only a couple of feet deep.

"It was the lack of that vital strap which caused it," I explained in an attempt to salvage some dignity.

They did offer me another go but I said I wanted time to dry out. Preferably years.