London, 22 January — Net Zero Watch has welcomed the government’s apparent decision to removing green levies from energy bills, providing direct relief to hard-hit households and also to industrial and commercial consumers.
According to a report in the Times, “ministers have been considering scrapping green levies from energy bills. However officials have concluded that because the government is contractually obliged to pay them they would simply be moved from energy bills to general taxation.”
Direct subsidies for renewable energy investors – via the Renewables Obligation, the Feed-in Tariff and the Contracts for Difference systems – run to £10 billion a year, but there is a further £2 billion from the high system costs renewables bring to the grid.
Net Zero Watch has repeatedly called on ministers to remove these renewable energy subsidies from energy bills to help reduce mounting pressure on the general cost of living.
Cutting green levies from energy bills will also allow the Treasury, in the medium-term, to buy back these subsidy entitlements at a discount, and eventually cease to provide green energy subsidies in any form.
Steve Baker MP said,
Thank goodness we now seem to be making progress towards better energy policy. Setting out to make the public poorer and colder never seemed likely to survive contact with electors. We can only hope ministers now accelerate down the path to policy with is socially, economically and politically viable.”
Dr Benny Peiser, Net Zero Watch director said:
It would appear that Rishi Sunak and his advisers in the Treasury are realising that billions in subsidies for renewable energy is no longer compatible in its present form, threatening the welfare of millions of households and undermining economic and political stability. Sooner or later, the Government will have to consider terminating all energy subsidies that are increasing costs and pain to consumers and businesses.”
Note for bloggers and journalists
Net Zero Watch has published a simple guide on a number of additional options available to the government to effectively solve the energy bills crisis in the short and medium term.
With mounting concern about the true cost of the Government’s Net Zero project the Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) has publishing a realistic alternative that reduces CO2 emissions without inflicting astronomical costs on consumers.
John Constable & Capell Aris: A workable alternative to Net Zero. A plan for cleaner, reliable and affordable energy (pdf)
via Net Zero Watch
January 22, 2022 at 05:31AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 