John Redwood

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RT HON JOHN REDWOOD MP  FREEDOM TODAY

Tony Blair tells us that global warming is the biggest threat  facing mankind. It is difficult to think he believes this. He has told us he has no intention of cancelling foreign holidays to reduce his carbon footprint, whilst his own airmiles rival a BA Steward on overtime. If he really thought the future of our planet rested on getting  CO2 emissions down surely he would  not be so selfish?

         What has been true of Tony Blair is true of the whole EU political class. They jump out of their jets to lecture the rest of us on the need to cut back the trips abroad. They leap out of their chauffeured limos to tell us to go by train rather than car, or to stay at home. They add more officials in large air conditioned offices to work out ways of taxing and regulating the rest of us out of our creature comforts.

        It is true the EU  have pulled off a spectacular propaganda coup on climate change. They have managed to blame the USA for the whole problem, posing as the answer because they have developed a carbon trading scheme. No-one in the ever sycophantic BBC asks why carbon emissions rose in the EU last year and fell in the USA. Its rhetoric , not results, that apparently counts in this battle for the moral high ground.

      It is time to ask the UK and EU governments why it is that carbon dioxide output is rising, and to examine which policies are helping cut it and which are not. When I last asked the government about this, they replied that the UK would hit its Kyoto targets. Ministers  gloss over recent reversals in cutting carbon and seem to have quietly dumped their super Kyoto target of cutting emission by 20% compared to 1990 levels.

      The UK has only followed one positive policy in the last two decades that has reduced our carbon output significantly. That policy was electricity privatisation.
When I was advising the Prime Minister in the mid 1980s, I called in the nationalised electricity industry to ask what they could do to make themselves cleaner and more fuel efficient. I  was concerned that they wasted two thirds of the energy they burned in their power stations and wanted them to do better.

     The complacent and disdainful reply from the monopolist was that I clearly did not understand the laws of thermodynamics. They told me that getting one third of the energy put into a coal station out in the form of electrical energy was as good as it gets. I should regard myself  lucky to live in Blighty where such a great public industry did such a splendid job. I replied that I might not be a hot shot on the laws of physics, but  I did know a thing or two about the laws of economics  and thought world technology had already moved on to capture much more of the basic energy during  generation.

       Sure enough, once we privatised and introduced competition, the industry stopped building old style coal power stations which were both dirty and inefficient. They dashed for gas, where efficiencies were around 55% instead of 33%, producing cheaper and cleaner current. It was this big transformation which means we will hit our Kyoto targets.

        Both Labour and Conservative governments  have pursued a less intentional and less desirable policy that has helped a bit – de-industrialisation. In the last ten years one million manufacturing jobs have gone and factories have closed. In recent years there has been a rush to the exit by energy intensive industries like steel, ceramics and paper. They have realised energy is cheaper, taxes lower and regulation less cumbersome elsewhere, at least for their new investments. This too has cut UK emissions, but not of course world emissions. It has merely transferred them elsewhere. One of the idiocies of the Kyoto targets approach is they look at each country’s performance within the system, without taking into account the transfer of carbon intensive activities offshore and to countries like India and China that are not parties to the agreement.

      The Labour government has also pursued a number of policies that put carbon emissions up. They have wanted to tackle something they call “fuel poverty”, which  really  means people who lack sufficient income to lead a decent life. The government has decided to subsidise pensioners to burn more fuel so they keep warmer in winter. As someone who thinks poverty at home and abroad is a more serious issue than climate change I have no problem with the government’s wish to help the elderly avoid the shivers, but it does act against their dedication to reducing carbon.

      The government also favours pensioners travelling more than their pensions would permit. It has introduced a national travel subsidy scheme for all pensioners, leading to more carbon producing transport than would otherwise be the case. They have expanded the public sector especially rapidly. This sector has a particularly bad record at saving energy, often relying on office accommodation where lighting, heating and air conditioning systems are energy intensive.

      Above all, the government has introduced a liberal immigration policy, adding to the numbers working and settled here substantially. This has increased the UK’s need for energy to look after the needs of  the new arrivals. Another idiocy of Kyoto is the numbers are not adjusted for the population, so a country experiencing net outward migration finds it much easier to hit the target than a country like the UK with a substantial inward migration.

     It is not surprising carbon emissions are going up when you see the UK’s policy mix. What is surprising is how the media have failed to ask the right questions about these policies and have given the government so much benefit of the doubt about their climate change approach.

    The EU has developed an Emission Trading Scheme, which it has been desperately trying to sell to the rest of the world. The 2005-7 version of this was a unique combination of spin and business inducements. We were told it was designed to cut emissions, when it did no such thing. Instead too many permits were given to certain countries and companies who could then make money out of selling them. No wonder it was popular with some of the biggest polluters.

     It is high time those who lecture us most about the dangers of CO2 did more themselves to show how it can be reduced. I believe technology is the answer to the need to be more fuel efficient and cleaner. Those who think we should make sacrifices and change our lifestyles  should show us how it is done. I do not see any glowing examples yet amongst the present government, who seem to think they should have a large carbon footprint, whilst the rest of us cut ours to accommodate theirs.