China, India and US make attempts to cut global greenhouse gas output futile

The articles by Joyce Mcmillan (19 April) and Kenny Macaskill and, of course, the political parties and “Extinction Rebellion” have all accepted that decarbonisation by compliant nations is worth spending huge monies and impairing industrial competitiveness on a predictably useless switch to all possible means of reducing greenhouse gas output.

That is all futile for at least two reasons; first, most global CO2, the putative main cause of climate change, is released by the “big emitters” – China, India and the US – who show no sign of participating in the curbs, nor of following our “good” example; secondly, there is no proof at all of the efficacy of cutting greenhouse gases in influencing climate changes, nor could there be.

Are those, no matter how erudite, espousing decarbonisation to offset climate change aware of these pesky but vital confounding factors?

Meanwhile, we in the UK are shooting ourselves in both feet, considering our tiny proportions of global CO2 emitted: 1.3 per cent, Scotland 0.13 per cent. Newspaper columnists, politicos and ER protesters are trying, of course, to seek benefits for us all but, here at least, their contributions make no sense.

Realistic opinion would, therefore, call for repeal of our Climate Change Acts (2008,9), despite the pleas of many climate “crusaders”.

(DR) CHARLES WARDROP

Viewlands West, Perth

Gill Turner once again attempts (Letters, 18 April) to denigrate the figures produced by Ian Moir on the subject of Scotland’s energy costs in the event that independence should ever come about. I would therefore appreciate it if you would permit me to challenge her on her rather selective response.

The essence of the latest effort seems to be to dismiss the validity of Mr Moir’s letters by listing various figures plucked from those letters without any attempt to contextualise. I will therefore not even attempt to respond to such vague assertions. I will, however, point out that in all her attempts to discredit Mr Moir’s figures, she has not once ( just like all the other proponents of wind energy) addressed the core point of his case. That is that, postindependence, Scottish consumers will have to pick up 100 per cent of the cost of the subsidies paid out to the producers of Scottish wind energy.

At present, these subsidies are paid for in the energy bills of all UK consumers, therefore the contribution from Scottish consumers will go from 8 per cent of the total subsidies to 100 per cent.

It should also be borne in mind that over 90 per cent of all UK wind energy is generated in Scotland, so with less than 10 per cent of the energy English consumers at present pay for 92 per cent of the total cost.

Now it shouldn’t be too difficult to understand the massive difference such an adjustment will make to the consumer cost of electricity in Scotland, but Ms Turner would rather concentrate on trying to discredit the figures by quoting out of context.