UK Faces Anti-Green Backlash As Energy Prices Rise

The British government faces a public backlash against its green energy agenda as consumers are unwilling to spend more on power and gas bills to pay for investment in low-carbon forms of energy, a parliamentary committee warned on Monday. An opinion poll published by utility Centrica last month showed only one quarter of respondents thought the government should stick to its plans for a greener economy if it means higher energy price. --Reuters, 25 July 2011

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Industry faces energy price increases of up to 70 per cent as a result of new 'green taxes' imposed by the Government. Studies by the Energy Intensive Users Group, which represents industries such as chemicals and steel, show that the extra costs are so high that many companies may be tempted to move to countries that do not have such extreme environmental laws. --Tom McGhie, This is Money, 24 July 2011 There are some wholly implausible assumptions about the pass-through of carbon and renewable subsidy costs. Our suspicion is that DECC has massaged the figures to make the impacts look less severe. --Jeremy Nicholson, Bloomberg, 29 July 2011 If the Prime Minister wants to get involved in climate change policy he should focus on problems closer to home first. Just last week the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) published a report which estimated that prices would rise for large energy intensive users by up to 52 per cent by 2020, with a central estimate of a 31 per cent rise. Unfortunately, this may be about as reliable as their farcical estimates for domestic consumers. --Matthew Sinclair, Conservative Home, 1 August 2011 The UK government has welcomed new developments in "unconventional" gas resources. It is largely a let's-wait-and-see response, which acknowledges the economic, environmental and security benefits of shale gas. Calls from environmentalist campaigners to freeze exploration in the UK have been given the bum's rush. --Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 26 July 2011 Climate change is far less serious than ‘alarmists’ predict, an eminent NASA scientist has said. Dr Roy Spencer, who works on the space agency’s temperature-monitoring satellites, claimed they showed ‘a huge discrepancy’ between the real levels of heating and forecasts by the United Nations and other groups. After looking at the levels of radiation in the atmosphere over the past ten years, he believes the Earth releases a lot more heat into space than previously thought. This means carbon dioxide emissions do not trap as much heat or force temperatures up as much as global warming bodies fear. --Tamara Cohen, Daily Mail, 30 July 2011

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