Call to slash green taxes af ter global warming ‘overstated’

GREEN taxes on energy bills should be cut in the light of a scientific report that said global warming is less drastic than feared, experts claimed yesterday.

Around 10 per cent of a family’s energy bill – roughly £111 a year – is used to subsidise renewable energy, according to official figures.

But critics now say this should be reduced because it is based on outdated information.

They point out the taxes further push up the cost of living as companies and the public sector pass the costs on to consumers.

Nearly all of the world’s governments are signed up to the 2015 Paris Agreement, which aimed to limit global warming to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

Many commentators believed this was practically impossible. But now a leading group of climate research- ers has said the computer projections used in previous studies were too pessimistic and the 1.5C target is achievable, provided strict cuts to carbon dioxide are made.

The Committee on Climate Change, which advises the Government on climate policy, claimed there was no reason to change its targets for cutting carbon in the light of the new paper.

But critics said that, as these estimates formed the basis of UK energy policy, it was also time to rethink the green taxes on energy intended to address them.

John Constable, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Foundation, which opposes subsidies to wind farms, said: ‘This research has confirmed what a lot of people have known. What is significant is estab- lishment figures are now admitting it. [Policymakers] should ... focus on cutting costs to consumers.’

The researchers, in an article in the journal Nature Geoscience, had said the world can emit around 240billion tons of carbon dioxide – around 20 years of current emissions – and still meet the 1.5C target. Michael Grubb, professor of international energy and climate change at University College London, admitted his past prediction had been too pessimistic.

‘When the facts change, I change my mind, as [economist John Maynard] Keynes said. It’s still likely to be very difficult to achieve these kind of changes quickly enough but we are in a better place than I thought,’ Dr Grubb told The Times.

Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, said: ‘What we really need to [ask] is how do we spend our money, how much should we spend on cutting CO2, compared to all the other things we should spend on [such as] the NHS. Are we spending too much on achieving too little?’

The Government has ordered a review of energy bills, headed by Oxford academic Professor Dieter Helm, although detailed recommendations of tax cuts do not form part of his brief.

Dr Constable added: ‘Given the uncertainties of the impacts, it was irrational to spend so much money on trying to reduce emissions quickly. Instead we should attempt through invention and innovation to bring emissions down in cost and reduce carbon emissions without heavy economic penalties.’

Chris Rapley professor of climate science at UCL, said: ‘The new analysis shows that if global actions are intensified, the limit could still be – just about – feasible.’

‘Focus on cutting cost to consumers’

FOR the umpteenth time, climate change scientists have been proved dramatically wrong, with evidence of global warming falling far short of their alarmist predictions.

Yet not a whisper of apology do they utter for the swingeing green taxes levied on energy bills – or the landscapes and sea views destroyed by unsightly wind farms – on the strength of their prophecies of catastrophe.

Instead, they say their latest mistake merely means we have longer than they thought to prevent temperatures from rising to danger level. Meanwhile, they ask us to believe their miscalculation can be partly explained by a revolution in solar power, particularly in China.

Nobody believes more strongly than the Mail that we should strive to look after our planet for our children and grandchildren.

But wouldn’t it be easier to trust the green lobby, in whose name we’re forced to make such huge sacrifices, if just occasionally they got their forecasts right?