DAILY MAIL 17.10.08
Families face £1,000-a-year bill as Government commits to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050
By David Derbyshire
Families face a £1,000-a-year bill after the Government committed
Britain to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent before 2050.
The decision gives the UK the toughest climate change targets in the
world and could usher in an era of green taxes and carbon rationing.
Government advisers admit that the shift to a 'low carbon' economy
will cost around £24billion a year at today's prices. Divided among
the nation's households, this works out at just under £1,000 extra
per family.
Higher goal: The shift to a 'low carbon' economy will cost around
£24billion a year
But it is at odds with ministers' support for the expansion of
Stansted and Heathrow airports and recent pledges to construct coal-
fired power stations.
Announcing the target yesterday, climate change minister Ed Miliband
said tough economic conditions were not an excuse to 'row back' on
tackling global warming.
He accepted the recommendations of the Government's Climate Change
Committee, which last week said the UK needed to cut emissions by
four-fifths of 1990 values.
Previously the Government had committed to a 60 per cent cut.
'In tough economic times, some people will ask whether we should
retreat from our climate change objectives,' he said.
'In our view, it would be quite wrong to row back and those who say
we should misunderstand the relationship between the economic and
environmental tasks we face.'
Last week the Committee on Climate Change said the target would cost
1 to 2 per cent of annual gross domestic product - which currently
stands at £1.2trillion.
Friends of the Earth's executive director, Andy Atkins, joined green
lobbyists in welcoming the announcement.
He said: 'Delaying action will land us with a bill for billions as we
struggle to deal with the devastating effects of climate change.
'Dramatically cutting our emissions won't mean we have to suffer
hardship - the lights will stay on, we will still travel and live
in comfortable homes.'
But Bjorn Lomborg, author of the Skeptical Environmentalist, said:
'It is an incredibly inefficient way to do virtually nothing. If the
UK managed to cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent, it would mean
postponing global warming by an order of less than a 500th of a
degree. Is that really what the British population want to spend 2
per cent of its income on?'
The new target does not include aviation or shipping emissions.
However, Mr Miliband said they would 'play a part' in the
Government's climate strategy.
Mr Miliband also pledged to help homes and small businesses generate
their own power.
He told the Commons the Energy Bill would be amended to introduce a
'feed-in tariff' to guarantee prices for micro-generation projects
which are able to supply electricity to the national grid. [This
would add `another tax / subsidy hidden undectably in your
electricity bills -cs]
He insisted commitments to reductions must come from Europe, despite
a demand by Poland and six other member states to drop them because
of the economic crisis.
discussed all this and certainly didn’t make any concessions to
reality except to postpone, as expected, the decision until the
December Council, to try and get the malcontents on board with some
specious opt-outs.
Britain of course is in a worse position than before as Brown moved
the sceptical John Hutton to Defence putting in the fanatical
‘warmist’ Ed Milliband into the new post of “climate change
minister” [sic] .
Britain’s situation is so bad because we, having plenty of potential
coal reserves, are being prevented from using coal to generate
electricity and already are running our coal-fired stations below
capacity and are not ‘permitted’ [sic] to build new ones
Despite this the EU says today that “figures show that as of 2006,
four EU-15 Member States - France, Greece, Sweden and the UK - had
already reached a level below their Kyoto target.” [France does so
with its massive nuclear generating system]. It goes on “Eight
additional other states - Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany,
Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal - project that they
will achieve their targets in the future.” [HA!]
Open Europe's report, released this week, [DO read!] found that the
package would cost £600 per family of four in Britain, and 73bn euro
per year across the EU was covered in Czech daily Pravo.
Who can be sure if the figure is £600 or £1,000 per family. But one
thing is certain - It’s wasted money.
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