One sometimes wonders if members of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee inhabit a sort of a green fairytale land. It seems as if no policy measure is ever too silly to find its way into their recommendations or an opinion too cockeyed for them to adopt.
As an example, take their report on energy subsidies, published today, which boldly declares that fossil fuels are subsidised by some £12bn per annum in the UK.
Globally, subsidies for fossil fuels exceed $500 billion a year. They are inconsistent with the global effort to tackle climate change, providing incentives for greater use of such fuels and disincentives for energy efficiency. Energy subsidies in the UK are running at about £12bn a year; much directed at fossil fuels. There is no single internationally agreed definition of what constitutes energy subsidy, which has provided a way for the Government to reject—erroneously, in our view—the proposition in some areas that it provides energy subsidies.
The idea that the UK subsidises fossil fuels is so daft that even the noble and learned Baroness Worthington has rejected it. Interestingly, the evidence on which this declaration was made seems to have been commissioned by the committee from Oxford Energy Associates, a loose affiliation of green-minded academics. No doubt you need some policy-based evidence making to build such a green fairy tale world.
But of course, when looked at through green goggles, real subsidies - those for renewables - are a different kettle of fish, being 'an essential lever':
Subsidies for renewables are an essential lever to provide certainty to industry and drive investment in those technologies. The Government should rethink its hostility to a separate continued European target for the deployment of renewables.
And, like the Labour party, they seem quite clear that energy bills are not yet high enough:
The variation in definitions of subsidy allows the Government to resist acknowledging subsidy in many areas, particularly on nuclear energy and the lower rate of VAT on domestic and small business bills.