Following on from the "shock” announcement that the Tories were co-opting Nicholas Stern to help them develop a "green investment bank", Stern has issued a denial.
"I should stress that I am not, and have no plans to be, an adviser to any political party," he said in a statement. This, says Sky News "may be an embarrassment for shadow chancellor George Osborne," who announced in a high-profile speech that he was "delighted that Lord Stern has agreed to advise us."
After the debacle over the appointment of General Dannatt as a Tory defence advisor, this is yet another unforced error which projects the Tory team – and Boy George Osborne in particular – as a bunch of kack-handed amateurs.
Even Iain Martin on the WSJ blog thought the appointment "odd", but when the Tories have it subsequently denied, "odd" doesn't even begin to describe it.
CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD
That is the latest offering from the BBC in its so-called "green room". Of course, it would help us better judge her argument if we knew more about Malini Mehra – details which the BBC does not provide.
For instance, she is a "political scientist" (whatever that is) and gender specialist by training. Having "worked" on the NGO circuit, variously for Oxfam and Friends of the Earth, she participated in the UK-funded Sustainable Development Dialogues and served as a member of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on UN-Civil Society Relations.
She also contributed to UN publications such as the Human Development Reports on Democracy (2002) and Human Rights (2000) respectively. She has been involved on climate issues since the United Nations’ conference in Kyoto (1997) where she coordinated the input of Friends of the Earth International.
From that, the question really should be, are Malini Mehra's views worth the paper they are not printed on?
CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD
Amid the torrent of "climate change" news, we missed this one, the government's very own "cap and trade" scam, disarmingly labelled the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme – formerly the Carbon Reduction Commitment.
This is the child of the Climate Change Act 2008 (approved by parliament in October of that year, while it was snowing outside), a new "carbon tax" which takes effect this April. As the official guide helpfully explains:
CRC will affect large organisations in both the public and private sector. Organisations that meet the qualification criteria, which are based on how much electricity they were supplied in 2008, will be obliged to participate in CRC.Initially, about 5,000 organisations will be caught in the net – including many of our major national retailers who between them account for many thousands of premises. The threshold is electricity usage of 6,000 MWh/year, with those users required to buy their allowances at an introductory price of £12 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted. They are then required to buy credits on the carbon market if they exceed their quota.
Participating organisations will have to monitor their emissions and purchase allowances, initially sold by Government, for each tonne of CO2 they emit. The more CO2 an organisation emits, the more allowances it has to purchase.
A singular feature of this system is that it does not cover those businesses and operations already covered by the EU's emission trading scheme, so these are additional to the current system.
Also included in the net are government-funded organisations such as local authorities, schools, hospitals and universities, which are already under financial pressure and which will now be subject to this bizarre system where the government gives with one hand and takes away with the other.
In what must also be the height of perversity, even central government departments fall into the net, so it would appear that the cash-strapped Ministry of Defence is going to have to divert funds from its front-line operations in Afghanistan to feed the ravenous carbon machine.
Needless to say, there is a massive bureaucracy involved in administering the scheme and, to add insult to injury, there is a registration fee of £950 for all "participants", plus an annual subsistence fee of £1,290 for administration.
Autonomous Mind has a good look at the scheme and concludes, as do we, that it confirms that it is money and not "saving the planet" which is driving the government's obsession with climate change.
What is surprising – although perhaps not, considering that we failed to register it – is that this has almost completely slipped under the radar and has remained unnoticed by the MSM in general - although not by the BBC.
From that, though, you would hardly realaise there was a problem but, when it is realised that patients are turned away from hospitals, school places are restricted and RAF aircraft are left on the ground, as funds are diverted to pay the carbon tax, perhaps sentiment will change.
As for business, this is another "own goal" on the part of the government, driving enterprises off-shore and adding to the growing ranks of the unemployed. Some, though, will doubtless become CRC administrators, so at least we get some more "green jobs" to keep Mr Cameron happy.
CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD
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