Green taxes on energy are undermining British businesses by imposing costs which are not faced by international competitors, Vince Cable has said. He said that British firms are "struggling" to compete with their international rivals on price, which is leading to work going abroad. "Many of our manufacturing companies and exporters – particularly in areas like steel and cement and others which consume lots of electricity – are struggling against international competition because of the cost of energy. --Steven Swinford, The Daily Telegraph, 5 October 2014
The Global Warming Policy Forum has welcomed Vince Cable’s belated admission that the government’s climate policy is damaging British businesses. “At a time when most major economies are turning to cheap and abundant fossil fuels, Britain alone seems prepared to risk its economic competitiveness by adopting policies that are making energy ever more expensive,” said Dr Benny Peiser, the GWPF’s director. “Given the manifest reluctance of major economies to follow Britain’s unilateral policy, the government should now suspend the fourth carbon budget and all post-2020 climate targets,” he added. --Global Warming Policy Forum, 6 October 2014
This week saw the 18th anniversary since the Earth's temperature last rose - something that Dr Benny Peiser, from the Global Warming Policy Forum, says experts are struggling to understand. Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) once predicted a temperature rise of 0.2 degrees per decade - but are now baffled by the fact our planet's temperature has not increased for almost two decades. Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, Dr Peiser said: "What has happened is that the public has become more sceptical because they were told we are facing Doomsday, and suddenly they realise ‘Where is the warming that we were promised?’" --Levi Winchester, Daily Express, 6 October 2014
Policy-makers should carefully consider the implications of the pause or “hiatus” in global warming when crafting climate policy, concludes a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank. The study, Climate Policy Implications of the Hiatus in Global Warming, spotlights the warming hiatus, and what it means for public policy in Canada and around the world. “Many politicians, journalists and others claim the climate is warming faster than expected. But over the past two decades, the pace of warming has actually slowed well below almost all model projections, and the implications for climate policy have not been adequately discussed,” said Ross McKitrick, study author, Fraser Institute senior fellow and economics professor at the University of Guelph. --Fraser Institute, 2 October 2014
Coal-fired power producer, Drax, and French energy group, EDF, have qualified for a UK scheme to reward power companies for keeping plants on standby, officials announced on Friday. The auction is one of several so-called capacity mechanisms that countries across the EU plan to avoid supply crunches and provide back-up on grids with growing proportions of intermittent electricity supplied by wind farms and other renewable generators. “These handouts look very much like the ‘perverse fossil fuel subsidies’ lambasted by David Cameron at the UN climate summit in New York last week,” said Lawrence Carter, Greenpeace UK energy campaigner. “No wonder they waited until 6pm on a Friday to bury the bad news.” --Pilita Clark, Financial Times, 3 October 2014
Poland's new prime minister said Thursday her coal-reliant country would not rule out vetoing the high carbon cuts likely to be demanded by other European Union members. "We will definitely be firmly stating our position," Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz said in an interview with Poland's commercial broadcaster TVN24. Asked if Poland would opt to exercise a veto in negotiations over carbon dioxide emission cuts, she said: "I'm not ruling it out." --AFP, 2 October 2014
