Ineos green taxes storm
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ARUNCORN chemical giant has been accused of lobbying the government to avoid paying levies aimed at tackling climate change.
Friends Of The Earth (FOE) made the claim after it obtained documents, seen by the Weekly News, from the Chemistry Growth Partnership (CGP) initiative under the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA).
One of the reports revealed that the CGP had listed one of its ‘priority actions’ as achieving a ‘level playing field on energy and climaterelated policy costs’.
Its recommended mitigation and action plan included pressing for the abolition of the UK ‘carbon floor’ tax on fossilfuel derived electricity generation and also looking to benefit from the exit from the European Union with calls to ‘simplify the UK policy mix and seek a single route to 100% exemption from policy costs and CCL (climate change levy)’ as well as ‘Seek a low cost alternative to EU ETS (emissions trading scheme)’.
The document listed Tom Crotty, Ineos director, as the lead on the project.
The CGP is co-chaired and represented by the Government by climate change and industry minister Nick Hurd MP.
National broadsheet The Guardian reported on the documents on Monday, with reference to Ineos founder Jim Ratcliffe’s ‘fracking’ and shale gas ambitions.
In 2014, Mr Ratcliffe declared that he wanted to make Ineos ‘the biggest player in the UK Shale gas industry’ and as he said shale could ‘revolutionise UK manufacturing as it has done in the USA’.
Guy Shrubsole, FOE campaigner, told The Guardian that Ineos wanted the petrochemical industry to avoid bearing ‘any of the costs of cleaning up their carbon pollution’.
Ineos’s fracking exploration licences include for the shale bed beneath Runcorn and Widnes.
A spokesman for Ineos told the Guardian that the firm ‘supports UK manufacturing’ and has consistently argued for a level playing field on its environmental legislation and competitive energy costs, to enable it to compete in world markets’.
He said: “Ineos has consistently opposed the carbon floor price, as we have always seen it as a UKonly tax on carbon which makes the UK uncompetitive on energy against the rest of the EU.”