Huhne's damaging legacy
May 22, 2011
Bishop Hill in Climate: Sceptics, Climate: solar, Energy

With serious allegations about Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne's driving licence, the last thing our favourite politician needed was this:

Even if Chris Huhne does lose his job over allegedly persuading his ex-wife to take his penalty points for a speeding offence, he will have been in office long enough to leave a damaging legacy – last week’s Carbon Budget, which commits the UK to halving emissions of carbon dioxide by 2025.

Breezily insisting that this would set the country on a path towards ‘green growth’, Mr Huhne told the Commons that the cuts in emissions, which can be achieved only by a radical and hugely expensive reconstruction of the energy industry, would not only protect the climate, but ensure prosperity.

Others are less optimistic. According to Tata, the Indian multinational that owns the great steelworks at Newport and Port Talbot, Mr Huhne’s Budget is likely to drive much of British industry abroad – to countries including the United States, China, India, Japan and everywhere else in Europe, which have made no binding CO2 commitments, and where energy will thus remain much cheaper.

Read the whole thing (scroll down the page to find the top of the story). The article also looks at the Cambridge conference and Svensmark.

(H/T to lots of people for this one - and sorry I keep forgetting to hat-tip people. I've got one or two rather big things on at the moment. Getting snowed under.)

Article originally appeared on (http://www.bishop-hill.net/).
See website for complete article licensing information.