Monday
Jul232012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Yeo fights for his right to trough
Jul 23, 2012 Climate: Parliament Economics Yeo Tim Yeo, the Tory MP who runs the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee, is all over the newspapers this morning, in an ongoing war of words between his committee and the Treasury, who seem to be trying to reduce the amount of money handed over to green energy projects, much to the distress of the MPs. See the FT here, the Telegraph here, and Roger Harrabin here. Yeo was also on Radio Scotland this morning apparently.
Interestingly, only the Telegraph sees fit to mention Yeo's various interests in green energy businesses and his chairmanship of the Renewable Energy Association.
Reader Comments (62)
I came straight here from reading the DT piece but see you're up to speed as usual, Bishop.
Is there no longer anyone in parliament, government or civil service who understands the concept of "conflict of interest"?
Will nobody rid us of this turbulent prat? (with apologies to King Henry II)
One to watch?:
http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Hain-quits-post-fight-Severn-barrage/story-16086436-detail/story.html
I watched the video of the recent select committee meeting in full and was disappointed, but not surprised, by the lack of rigour among the committee. Only Hughes of GWPF made any attempt to counter the standard approach. Later speakers made unsupported assertions without challenge. I'm looking at the CVs of the committee members, to see how/whether they're qualified to advise the Chancellor on the subsidy issue, but little information so far.
Yeo opened the session with a decaration of interest, but repeatedly stressed it was unpaid - is there a trail to follow there, I wonder?
Ian_UK
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/tim_yeo/south_suffolk
John Gummer, force-feeder of children to the Queen, is Chairman of a wind energy company and is also very senior in GLOBE, whose aim is sustainability via Agenda 21
http://www.forewind.co.uk/news/10/61/John-Gummer-to-Chair-Forewind-Ltd.html
http://www.globeinternational.org/index.php/blog/item/lord-deben
Apparently its the quality of the swill that he takes issue with: troughing is a given.
From not banned yet's link above
Further proof that our representatives live in a world completely separate from reality. Then again perhaps he was referring to China.
The concept of "conflict of interests" obviously does not apply to "good" causes! We all know how self-appointed opinion formers will define "good causes."
Forgive the pedantry but isn't the normal English usage 'sees fit'? But it's better this way. The Telegraph appears to have come off the fence on global warming-related absurdities and hypocrisies of late.
Read the two pieces in the DT today. The whole thing seems utterly barking, a government in total disarray. Why is it impossible for the UK to get some kind of dispassionate cost-benefit analysis of energy policy?
I'm glad I live in Japan, where problems are things to be solved. I bleed for my home, the UK, where it seems an Oxford PPE is all that's required to nose-dive a nation into the ground.
Richard Drake
'Off the fence' is a bit generous, I think.
Dangling one foot temptingly towards the grass is perhaps more accurate.
On the other hand the views of Booker, Delingpole and Moore seem to be quite acceptable to the powers-that-be at Victoria Plaza so perhaps one could argue that it is about as balanced as any of the mainstream press.
I know the house rule and I know this might end in the dustbin but it's worth saying anyway.
The reason why "nearly all of the 'famous' deniers are in various oil and financial interests up to their eyeballs" is because that is the sensible thing to do. It is those who are up to their eyes in the idiocies of "renewable energy" or the rent-seekers who have their noses buried in that trough to the detriment of the UK and every other country where they hold sway who deserve every litre of the obloquy that is poured on them.
That is not hypocrisy; that is making a reasoned value judgment and acting accordingly.
Tim Yeo has voiced support for individual carbon useage accounts - monitored and set up by government. When we have this sort of dictatorial claptrap peddled by a Tory MP we really are in trouble.
Re: Mike Jackson
Just as a matter of interest, which 'famous' deniers are up to their eyeballs in oil and financial interests?
The reason I ask is because I have heard this numerous times but never seen any evidence to back up the claim.
The evidence usually turns out to be something along the lines of: "XYZ went to a conference hosted by ABC who received $X in funding from DEF which received a $Y donation from oil company GHI."
Yeo has also called for communities to be 'bribed' into accepting windfarms. In other words state-sponsored corruption.
Guardian.
Telegraph.
I have always thought the Severn Barrage was a good idea not only on the energy front. It would bring many real jobs to the economy and British construction and steel industries. It would help to prevent flooding of the rivers Severn and Wye. It would create a large inland waterway for water sports and possibly fish farming. The cost is mostly one off set up costs and at 34 billion much better than useless wind generators and solar panels with their ongoing subsidies and blot on the landscape. Private capital with Government guaranties is what I would advocate. A permanent land bridge between the west’s north coast and Wales to the benefit of both. I Think an all win situation all it needs is some sound leadership not the rubbish that comes out of the DECC and the sycophantic select committee of zealots. (Ho ! I am sure provision can be made for the Brent Geese).
The real 'eminence grise' is SHELL'S David Hone. Read his blog and all will be revealed. He is not only SHELL's Senior Climate Change Adviser but also Chairman of the International Emissions Trading Association.
Hone has deeply committed SHELL to the $176,000,000,000 Carbon Trading scam and is desperate to find a way out now that the 'bubble' has burst.
He used the Telegraph's 'environment correspondent' Geoffrey Lean to 'front' a series called 'Age of Energy' in the DT, with massive financial support.
In this process we see Hone 'persuading' Oliver Letwin (Cameron's adviser on these matters) that the
future lies with CCS.
We all know that Carbon Capture and Storage cannot possibly work, but it suits Hone to pretend that it can.
( Shale Gas can only be exploited if we use CSS - i.e NEVER !)
Incidentally the idiotic Tim Worstall (a Hone disciple) has just posted another DT blog, even more puerile than his earlier ones.
Why does ANYONE take him seriously, he says (inter alia) - 'We've got a way of pulling at least some of the CO2 out of the atmosphere where it's about to boil us all in our beds'.
Those individuals who lose personal fortunes on this will not have to reveal their embarrassment publicly, but companies may have some difficulty covering it up.
By any standard $176 billion is an awful lot of money !
Ross Lea
..and loose an international site for wading birds, and it will silt up within a few years anyway.
me
Got your priorities right then !
I wrote to Mr. Yeo:
"You are Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee you are also Chairman of “TMO Renewables Limited, a company developing and supplying technology for second generation biofuels. Your duties involve chairing board meetings and keeping in touch with senior management.” For which you received £61,000 for 162 hours chairing meetings and “keeping in touch with senior management,” whatever that is, in 2011. This could be taken as something of a conflict of interest by the more suspicious minded when you speak out on climate change, because the company you chair stands to benefit from the belief in upcoming catastrophe and would go out of business without the alarmism. For my part I’m sure you handle the clear conflict of interest with the utmost probity, and have accepted the chair of the company out of a deeply held belief that the world in going to hell in a handbasket. But I’m probably in the minority when it comes to politicians and their self-interest. I prefer to see them as men and women who’ve given their lives in selfless service to the public good.
I voted for young Gummer, your neighbour
1. China emits the total annual output of the UK’s CO2 emissions every three and a half weeks;
2. Nobody, alarmist, or sceptic, believes that doubling CO2 will cause enough warming to bring about the foretold climate catastrophes;
3. The alarmism arises out of the assumption, not supported by any empirical evidence whatsoever, that the increased water vapour arising from the 1C increase in temperature will cause a “positive feedback” that will increase the temperature by 3.5C. (It used to be assumed, again without empirical evidence, other than the continued existence of the Earth, that the water vapour caused clouds that reduced the temperature because of the albedo effect, that more sensible theory was jettisoned to make way for the alarmism).
I believe the earth is warming and has been for at least 200, or so years, although given the way the temperature records have been tampered with it’s difficult to know by how much;
I don’t believe the earth is flat;
I don’t believe that Darwin was wrong;
I don’t believe the US blew up the twin towers
I don’t believe that humans and the earth were created 6500 years ago and that dinosaur bones have been planted to give lie to the creation;
I don’t believe we have nearly enough evidence to spend £18bn per annum for 20 years trying to get our emissions to one week of China’s output;
I do believe that the taking of agricultural land for the production of bio-fuels is a major cause of the rise in food prices and hunger worldwide."
From They Work for You: Other reasons why Mr Yeo is passionate about his work:
ITI Energy Limited; suppliers of gasification equipment.
AFC Energy; company developing alkaline fuel cell technology. Address: Unit 71.4 Dunsfold Park, Stovolds Hill, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8TB. Undertake duties as Chair, run board meetings and keep in touch with senior management.
Received payment of £3,750. Hours: 10 hrs. (Registered 20 March 2011)
Received payment of £3,750, 9 May 2011. Hours: 11 hrs. (Registered 14 June 2011)
Received payment of £3,750, 13 June 2011. Hours: 12 hrs. (Registered 3 September 2011)
Received payment of £3,750, 11 July 2011. Hours: 11 hrs. (Registered 3 September 2011)
Received payment of £3,750, 22 August 2011. Hours: 11 hrs. (Registered 12 October 2011)
Received payment of £3,750, 12 September 2011. Hours: 10 hrs. (Registered 12 October 2011)
Received payment of £3,750, 7 October 2011. Hours: 8 hrs. (Registered 17 November 2011)
Received payment of £5,000, 14 November 2011. Hours: 10 hrs. (Registered 13 December 2011)
Received payment of £5,000, 13 December 2011. Hours: 12 hrs. (Registered 2 February 2012)
Received payment of £5,000, 10 January 2012. Hours: 9 hrs. (Registered 9 February 2012)
And:
Groupe Eurotunnel SA (non-executive) (of which Eurotunnel plc is a wholly owned subsidiary); company managing the Channel Tunnel. Address: Cheriton Parc, Cheriton High Street, Folkestone, Kent, CT19 4QS. My duties as a non-executive director include attendance at meetings of the Board and of the Environment and Safety Committee and advising senior management on a range of issues.
Received payment of £3,622.57, 9 May 2011. Hours: 6 hrs. (Registered 14 June 2011)
Received payment of £3,569.33, 31 May 2011. Hours: 5 hrs. (Registered 14 June 2011)
Received payment of £7,238.97, 28 July 2011. Hours: 11 hrs. (Registered 3 September 2011)
Received payment of £6,440.62, 12 September 2011. Hours: 16 hrs. (Registered 12 October 2011)
Received payment of £4,245.20, 14 October 2011. Hours: 4 hrs. (Registered 17 November 2011)
Received payment of £3,526.97, 21 November 2011. Hours: 4 hrs. (Registered 13 December 2011)
Received payment of £6,885.38, 31 January 2012. Hours: 8 hrs. (Registered 9 February 2012)
Eco City Vehicles plc, Hemming House, Hemming Street, London, E1 5BL; distributes and services London taxis. Duties include chairing board meetings and keeping in touch with senior management.
Received payment of £3,333.33. Hours: 10hrs. (Registered 20 March 2011)
Received payment of £3,333.33, 23 May 2011. Hours: 9 hrs. (Registered 14 June 2011)
Received payment of £3,333.33, 22 June 2011. Hours: 9 hrs. (Registered 3 September 2011)
Received payment of £3,333.33, 22 August 2011. Hours: 8 hrs. (Registered 12 October 2011)
Received payment of £3,333.33, 22 September 2011. Hours: 8 hrs. (Registered 12 October 2011)
Received payment of £3,333.33, 24 October 2011. Hours: 6 hrs. (Registered 17 November 2011
Trotters in the trough indeed!
Yeo was all over the place. On Radio 4 this morning at around 7:30am. He must have got up early.
Severn barrage. Destroy the envionment for all the things that live there. No problem.
It was funny, on a website where I am now banned, that all the greens felt it was perfectly acceptable to dam all the mountain valleys in Japan for pumped storage.
Any price is acceptable to some, as long as they can live their urban lives without power cuts. Carpet the nation with power stations. Dam the rivers and valleys. It's all fine as long as they are not burning hydrocarbons, and the iphone is charged by breakfast time.
Geronimo, kudos. I was going to lnik to Guido who is running a yeo story. No need, yours is better.
See also
http://order-order.com/2012/07/23/why-tim-yeo-is-really-upset-about-green-cuts/
Very illuminating Geronimo and profoundly depressing.
Guess that Tim's not so dim.
Zed and follow-ups removed
Yes I heard Yeo on Radio Scotland this morning.
The interviewer did not mention Yeo's business self interests.
All part of the BBC blackout on any rational examination of global warming.
Yeo wants the taxpayer to underwrite the profits of his companies.
Wouldn't we all like a guarantee that our investments could never make a loss!
Is this what conservatives call a free market?
The carbon traders and subsidy junkies are getting desperate and are using the quiet news period before the Olympics to maximum effect.
'Zed and follow-ups removed'
Certain other bloggers would give their eye teeth to have that facility !
Re: Jul 23, 2012 at 12:20 PM | geronimo
Many thanks, geronimo, an extremely interesting post.
One wonders how many of our MPs embroiled in such conflicts of interest have any time at all to represent the interests of the British public.
I suspect that somehow they don't.........
As I mentioned on another thread we really do need someone of the calibre of Elizabeth Filkin to police all this. (As she did in her days as UK Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards - her abilities proved to be so unpopular that she was ousted, a great shame.)
Re - 'conflicts of interest' - I will try to precis a recent exchange of e-mails I've had with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
This all started when a new offshore windfarm was reported on Look East (BBC - who else) in the Wash, and the Beeb sought the view of an RSPB spokesperson. On camera, her opening remarks were: 'We need renewables and as soon as possible...' and then went on to actually talk about migratory routes for birds etc..
So - I wrote to the RSPB, expressing my surprise and concern that one of their officers should appear to be supporting windfarms, and surely the organisation should be vehemently opposed to anything which threatened birds. They replied at great length, having clearly swallowed the Climate Change Act whole ('We plan to help to reduce our carbon footprint by 80% by 2050..') - and with some extraordinary statistics about wind farms ('...actually generate electricity 80-85% of the time..') versus conventional generators ('...average load factor of 50-55%...')...
On the question of the potential damage which wind turbines can do to birds, which I raised, their response was, and of course I quote verbatim: 'In fact, wind turbines are responsible for less than 0.01% of avian mortality caused by humans..'
I know..! There's more: 'In terms of electricity generated, wind is substantially safer than fossil fuel energy when avian deaths per unit of elctricity generated are compared.'
Birds smashing themselves to bits on the side of a gas-fired power station..?
Needless to say, I wrote back challenging these figures, adding a few other 'proper' facts of my own, to which the RSPB replied, clearly wishing to bring the correspondence to a close, thanking me for my time and trouble and confirming that all their facts were correct, having checked them with their 'Senior Renewable Energy Policy Officer' and his 'team'...
SENIOR Renewable Energy POLICY Officer..? His 'TEAM'..? How many of them are there, for goodness' sake - deciding on the renewable energy policy of a BIRD charity..??
Re: Jul 23, 2012 at 1:42 PM | David
Thanks - another interesting post!
I too have had occasion to query this sort of nonsense.
Quite often you'll find that the figures they quote are from MODELS and reality is very different.
"We were told by the manufacturer to expect maybe one fatality a year but it killed 14 in six months so we took advice and made the decision to turn it off."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/7870929/Primary-school-forced-to-turn-off-wind-turbine-after-bird-deaths.html
Sorry - posted too soon.
And yes
"SENIOR Renewable Energy POLICY Officer..? His 'TEAM'..? How many of them are there, for goodness' sake - deciding on the renewable energy policy of a BIRD charity..??"
I think you'll find that our charities are awash with such positions - there are very many employed by the 'global warming is a threat' industry. Various charities receive massive funding to support 'The Cause'
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/43291
"One of the most troubling discoveries made by the scrutinizers was the vast number of allegedly scientific claims in the ipcc’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report that were referenced not to peer-reviewed scientific journals, but rather to advocacy groups or ngos. As judged by the number of citations, perhaps the most authoritative of the nonscientific “authorities” cited in the ipcc report is the self-styled conservation organization that goes by the initials wwf. The acronym originally stood for “World Wildlife Fund,” and the American branch of the organization still uses this name. The organization as such, however, is now officially known as “wwf—World Wide Fund for Nature.”
According to publicly available European Commission data, WWF was awarded nearly 9 million euros in EU support in 2008 alone."
Re: David
> SENIOR Renewable Energy POLICY Officer..? His 'TEAM'..? How many of them are there, for goodness' sake
The RSPB has an annual income of £122million and employs over 2000 people.
Don't expect them to cite any references for the "avian deaths per unit of electricity generated".
You will also find that some people think that windmills don't need power lines and so will only attribute any deaths caused to fossil fuels generators.
Yeo is 'nice' Conservative. The BBC and Guardian love him and hang on his every word.
Funny why they do that.
I am sorry can't read things properly today...even in Business Green's profile of Yeo, I am too busy to spot where his business interests were mentioned as the RT Hon. got an award as "Politician of the Year":
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/feature/2097629/businessgreen-leaders-award-2011-tim-yeo-revitalisation-green-select-committee?WT.rss_f=
This is the same Tim Yeo, is it not, who used to fly around the world on a weekly basis engaged in the vital task of reviewing golf courses, as the FT Golf Correspondent - while at the same time advocating carbon rationing for the rest of us plebs?
The man combines the carbon footprint of a small country with hypocrisy that would bring a blush to the cheeks of Tony Blair.
http://order-order.com/2007/01/12/tim-yeo-flies-back-from-another-golf/
A government which turned over the writing of the Climate Change Act to a young, green activist, is not capable of understanding much.
"One of the most bizarre features of the Climate Change Act – put through by Ed Miliband when he was our first climate change secretary and passed almost unanimously by MPs – is that it was largely drafted by a young green lobbyist, Bryony Worthington, seconded to the Civil Service from Friends of the Earth, where she had been in charge of their global warming campaign. On YouTube you can see a talk she gave last year to another campaigning body, funded by the Department for International Development, in which she tells the extraordinary story of how the Act that commits the UK to these pie-in-the-sky targets came about. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9416805/MPs-have-no-idea-what-the-Climate-Change-Act-means.html
Tim Yeo "Conservative" with a small "c".
"Corrupt" with a big "C".
I gave up on the RSPB 20 years ago.
Whichever bird I happened to like it didn't want to protect. After a bit of (not very scientific) research I came to the conclusion that they picked a sort of Bird of the Year which fronted all their fund-raising. Since they appeared to be heavily into the sort of predator that I rarely got to see but which other organisations, like the BTO, believed were responsible for the decline of quite a number of song birds, I didn't see much point in giving them money.
I wrote and told them they should change the name from Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to Royal Society for Profitable Birds. I remember a friend of mine saying he had had the same problem with the RSPCA which he had re-christened the Royal Society for the Protection of Cuddly Animals!
Jul 23, 2012 at 1:42 PM | Unregistered Commenter David
'In fact, wind turbines are responsible for less than 0.01% of avian mortality caused by humans..'
In my day two birds with one stone was a mark of energy efficiency. We used to call it Monolithic Biavicide.
Jul 23, 2012 at 5:41 PM | Alan Reed
"Monolithic Biavicide." I like it.
Why bother with a dam across the river Severn when you can run another cable under the Channel and buy more nuclear energy in from France
The UK got blown out by the Germans ,France is still quite interested .The UK want China to come in on the next generation of UK nuclear stations
So who wants to bet the Chinese will try buy up all the remaining British gas and coal stations
Just gives the Chinese another foothold in theEuropean Union And Tim Yeo is trying to hold them off with the Renewables argument.
I have the privilege of being in Tim's constituency where he has been the MP for thirty years. Recently, I took part in an event sponored by Tim's committee looking into the possibility of 'sustainable' power for the local village. He brought up the usual pro-AGW statistics in support of the proposal and reiterated his support for wind turbines. This contrasts with the experience of a neighbouring constituency threatened with windfarms at Clare, where Tim was listed as one of those MP's opposed to this installation. However if you here Tim talk in the House he is an enthusiastic proponent of wind subsidies.
He fliflops like a jellyfish and I can only assume that has something to do with him jockeying for positions as he nears the end of his political career.
https://twitter.com/chhcalling/status/227434837429084160
Anoneumouse
Nice one.
A cracking letter geronimo.
I doubt if you will get a response though!
This morning's BBC Radio Scotland interview is here; the segment starts just before the 1:36 mark:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b01ks40m
Neither the BBC Radio Scotland nor the Today programme interviews will be available after 7 days, so I've made recordings of both, to write up later. Here's a sample:
Oops, the blockquotes went wrong - that last bit about the mixed up names is by me, not Tim Yeo!