But the U.K.’s climate agenda is now decades old. The Climate Change Act (CCA) was made legislation in 2008, 16 years ago, but the drive towards decarbonisation started much earlier in the days of the Blair Government. The years ahead of the CCA saw the formation of a cross-party Westminster consensus on climate change, rather than a conversation with the public about what it would require of them and to seek their support. Consequently, the apparatus for the climate agenda was established through intergovernmental agencies and agreements, deals with the EU, legally-binding legislative measures to allow the enforcement of the green agenda by wealthy interests in the courts, and the construction of domestic carbon bureaucracies.
Gary Smith was the sole member of the panel at what was intended to be a debate for the same reason that it has not been possible for critics of Net Zero to get answers out of the likes of the U.K. Climate Change Committee (CCC). The CCC, as with any other agency or organisation, does not debate because it does not need to. The matter is settled. The cross-party consensus was established by green lobbyists without debate. And consequently, ostensibly democratic institutions have been wholly aligned to green ideology and the Net Zero policy agenda. It’s not up for debate.
– Ben Pile
Stupid decisions have (immense & immediate) consequences.
Everyone I talk to in all walks of life understands this. It has a terrible financial impact on each them.
Except Mr. Ed Miliband.
Ed will single-handedly destroy this Labour Government before it serves its term. Unless Lammy, Starmer, Rayner, Reeves or perhaps Cooper get there first.
Which stone did that little creep crawl out from? I’d completely forgotten about him or his brother. What oligarch has been sustaining those useless chuckleheads for the last sixteen years ?
FFS!
I agree with what I’ve read of Ben Pile’s article (from this excerpt and the part of it on the Daily Sceptic that is not behind a paywall), but I disagree with both the headline to this post and the original headline. The New Net Zero Resistance is not “doomed to fail” and there is plenty of stopping a bad idea whose bad consequences are becoming visible to ordinary people. In country after country the brakes are being put on. The fact that it was all “settled” as a consensus among UK politicians and bureaucrats, and their equivalents in other nations, without public input makes it weaker, not stronger
The Climate Change Act needs to be recognised as a piece of insanity triggered by panic and exploited by those who saw advantage in wrecking our industries. The madness will not be over until it is repealed, and widespread publicity given to why it was absurd.
The madness will not be over until it is repealed, and widespread publicity given to why it was absurd.
Fat chance!
We were subsidising “clean energy” by overcharging ourselves for gas and electricity under the previous Government to the tune of about £10Bn pa.
Ed has gone into overdrive by “investing” (I love that word) in more wind power subsidies & resetting the date back to 2030 when we can’t buy any more ICE cars. These rules will devastate the UK car industry. Listen to threats to pull out of the UK manufacturing from Stellantis & the warnings from Ford that they will not sell a single car that causes them to pay a £15k fine for each ICE vehicle they sell over their quota.
Then look at the new rules Ed is proposing that no property can be rented with an EPC rating less than “C” along with the new impositions from another Government Dept. on Landlords such as the end of “No Fault” termination of tenancies.
The impact of all these glorious “investments” & wonderful regulations is going to be not Tens of £ Billions but Hundreds of £ Billions pa of Government spending. It’s going to make the so called “£22Bn Black Hole” look like chickenfeed.
I think the charade will only begin to end when we get into a similar financial mess (are we there yet?) to the one the Socialists got us into in the 1970s. Perhaps THEN we might consider repealing the Climate Change Act.
Sadly, I think JohnOfEnfield’s analysis is entirely correct.
As Douglas Caswell, former Member of Parliament and historian of British politics, is fond of pointing out – British politics has always tended to be from “above” NOT “below” – the elite get ideas (intellectual fashions) and make them policy.
The voters rarely influence policy (they do sometimes – but rarely), and bribes from special interests, whilst they can influence things at the margins, rarely make a big difference to policy either – what matters is the intellectual fads and fashions of the establishment elite (via the education system and-so-on).
“Net Zero” is a good example – it is an intellectual fashion of the “educated” establishment elite, therefore it is fanatically followed by British officials and “experts” with politicians tagging along behind.
President Trump is campaigning against “Net Zero” in the United States – and if he manages to overcome the election fraud of the establishment, there is a good chance that he will actually be able to stop it.
But Britain is not like that – indeed, perhaps the reason that massive election fraud is not “necessary” here is that even if the people vote for a political party that says it is against X policy – this policy, if supported by the officials and “experts”, will still be followed.
For example, when the people voted to leave the European Union, officials and experts (including judges) ensured that the policies of the E.U. were still followed in the United Kingdom – especially on immigration, thus defecating on the expressed opinion of the British people.
Remember it is far less difficult to remove a British Prime Minister than it is a American President (or even an American State Governor) – so if a British Prime Minister does not do a “Boris Johnson”, i.e. give in on HS2, give in on the border down the Irish Sea, give in on the Covid lockdowns, and-so-on, that Prime Minister can be removed – and replaced by someone who will follow the policies of the establishment.
Like most major policies today “Net Zero” is an international policy, pushed by the international establishment elite, but Britain is far more vulnerable to this policy than other countries – as British politics is so ideological and so “top-down”, with neither the voters or even special interests (such as manufacturing in Germany – which has managed to keep coal power stations running) having much say here.
What matters in British politics is normally (NOT always – but normally) the beliefs of the educated establishment elite – and if this, say, destroys British manufacturing and freezes lots of people to death, well that is tragic – but such factors are unlikely to influence decision making here.
Remember the establishment regard it as their duty to “educate the public” NOT to follow the “ill informed” opinions of the public.
They are rather similar to Rousseau in this respect – his belief that the Law Giver (he himself – or someone like him) should act as a “tutor” – transforming the ignorant “will of all”, what people think is in their interests, into the true “General Will” which only the Law Giver could know – what was truly in the interests of the people, but which they (the people) were too ignorant to know.
Before someone points it out – yes Rousseau seems to have got this view from Plato.
APL:
They come from one Ralph Milliband, Marxist sociologist.
No hope for them, really!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Miliband