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UK govt ‘sabotaging clean energy future’

And it is big – £110bn – all of which will ultimately be paid by you and me through our electricity and gas bills. The good news, trumpeted most recently not by greens but by the UK’s biggest business lobby, the CBI, is that the green economy is growing fast, in stark contrast the rest of the UK economy. It already employs a million people…..

Why is the Treasury intent on sabotaging our clean energy future?, Guardian UK, Damian Carrington, 23 July 12 George Osborne appears utterly unwilling to give up burying landmines along the road to a low-carbon energy system. The reason why is a disturbing one. Defending the indefensible is not uncommon in politics, but its rarely a winning strategy. Yet George Osborne and the Treasury appear utterly unwilling to give up burying its landmines along the road to a clean energy system that is fit for the 21st century. The urgent question is why: the answer is a disturbing one.

The case for a low-carbon energy system to replace the dirty, ageing one we have is unanswerable and backed by every serious stakeholder. Three things matter: cost, climate change and continuity of supply. No-one wants the lights to go out and very few doubt the dangers of global warming, leaving cost the big issue.

And it is big – £110bn – all of which will ultimately be paid by you and me through our electricity and gas bills. The good news, trumpeted most recently not by greens but by the UK’s biggest business lobby, the CBI, is that the green economy is growing fast, in stark contrast the rest of the UK economy. It already employs a million people…..

In the absence of any rational explanation for the Treasury’s expensive sabotaging of the UK’s energy future, one is left to conclude that the noisy minority of backbench Tories whose constituents loathe wind turbines are the one’s with their fingers on the trigger.

If so, the disturbing reality is that whether the lights stay on, whether we tackle climate change and whether we miminise the cost of doing so is being determined by the short-term political advantage of appeasing a vocal minority, rather than in the interests of the silent majority. In the long-term, that is not a winning strategy, environmentally, economically or politically. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/jul/23/energy-gas-wind-renewable-osborne?newsfeed=true

 

July 24, 2012 - Posted by | general

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