Wednesday
Jun302010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Foreign office cuts its green spending
Jun 30, 2010 Greens Politicians With hard times truly upon us, the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has announced that he is seeking savings from the Foreign Office's budget by cutting back on green spending.
What is remarkable is that the Low Carbon, High Growth programme is going to survive at all. Does anyone in government seriously think that this is a sensible thing to be spending money on?
Reader Comments (10)
They believe its politically worth it? They'll be torn to shreds by the, still very powerful, catastrophic green lobby.
"Cut the FCO’s spending on its Low Carbon High Growth programme by around £3m this financial year and explore alternative sources of funding for the programme for future years. This does not mean the FCO is ending work on these issues: our diplomats will remain fully engaged in the UK’s international efforts to promote a low carbon high growth economy. "
If they can "remain fully engaged" with £3 million less budget, what were they wasting the 3million on previously?
"Promote a low carbon high growth economy" A low energy economy can not equal a high growth economy and BAU IMO, they're promoting a pipe dream.
Did anyone hear Roger Harribin on the today program before 7am this morning where he inserted a comment into the start of his report about the recent "study" showing that "98% of scientists were believers in global warming" (or something to that effect) and concluding that we could ignore the other 2%.
The FO cut in spending is purely on talking about Low Carbon issues.
The real money is with DECC which is carrying on the Governments intention of supplying our energy from windmills and waves.
The question needs to be asked why the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is facing a 2.5% budget cut on a budget of £3.2 billion when other front line departments such as Education, Transport and Police etc are facing cuts of upto ten times more at 25%
Is that right? Can you give me a link m'lud?
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2263557/green-services-firing-line
http://www.ukfast.co.uk/green-daily-news/budget-cuts-affect-green-services.html
'The Treasury today confirmed the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) will have its budget for 2010/11 cut by £85m, equivalent to around 2.5 per cent of its total budget, while the Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) will see its budget cut by 5.5 per cent, equating to cuts of £162m.'
http://www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk/news/decc-to-cut-54m-from-green-support-bodies-and-programmes-1448.aspx
I am sure that there was a newspaper website that I read it on, possibly the Times that has now gone behind a pay wall but a search will provide the above, hope these are sufficient!
Yes I heard "Today" about how the recession has 'helped' the war on carbon to achieve a 9% reduction in something 'bad'.
My local council has announced a plan to reduce their own CO2 emissions by 60% by 2020.
Anyone with maths can work out that you need a reduction of 9% each year to get there. That's 9% this year, then 9% next year then 9% the year after. So a recession every year followed by a deeper recession the year after...
Compound interest works against you if you want to reduce something.
They all believe it is worth spending our money on it because "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."Henry Louis Mencken,
The fact that they are not enthusiatically pushing nuclear power, which is the only practical way of cutting CO2 output, shows that every single one of them knows perfectly well that catastrophic warming is a lie. But such a useful one.
Hague is a big hitter in Cabinet. Probably number 3 in the pecking order (Cameron, Osborne, Hague....)
And as a guy who has been around the block a few times, he has his head screwed on. £3M in the global scheme of things is peanuts (less than 5 minutes of total government spending).
So he is doing this to make a point. I suspect that he has a finely tuned nose for bullshit and it is twitching. It will also annoy the f..k out of Huhne, who is having a bad month (to say the least) and the International Aid guy.
Let us applaud Mr Hague and encourage him and his colleagues to continue to weed out CAGW alarmism whenever it is encountered.
Maybe the Foreign office could persuade some of our international partners to contribute to the "Greening up" of our capitol.
"Moreover, over 36 million pounds of traffic fines were owed. Apparently, the biggest offenders to not pay for the London traffic congestion charge, which is a tax levied on vehicles entering the city at peak times, are the United States embassy, which owes close to 3.8 million pounds, followed by Russia at 3.2 million and Japan at 2.77 million.
British authorities say the fee is something that everyone must pay, but embassies say it is a tax and that diplomats are exempt. The release of these figures comes at a time when the British government is strapped for cash and is looking for ways to close the gaps in their budget."