Britain's Green Poverty Crisis: Pressure mounts to abandon green energy plans to ease burden of soaring fuel bills

One in four households will be driven into fuel poverty if the Government pursues controversial green energy targets, ministers have been warned. ‘Radical policy change’ may be necessary to protect millions of struggling families from biggest household price shock since the 1970s, according to City analysts. The warning comes as middle-income homes are already suffering an ‘unprecedented collapse’ in living standards as inflation and poor wages wipe thousands off incomes. --Sean Poulter, Daily Mail, 12 October 2011




WHEN people on average earnings start to fall into “fuel poverty” it is clear that Britain is in the grip of a living standards crisis. Such a situation demands radical government action. Politicians must ensure they are doing everything possible to relieve the burden on hard-pressed families rather than adding to it. So it is time for Britain to abandon unilateral and unrealistic targets for cutting CO2 emissions, especially where they will only be achieved by investing a fortune in prohibitively expensive “renewable” sources of energy. --Daily Express, 12 October 2011


The Government should now consider a complete moratorium on green energy legislation that threatens to impose huge additional costs on all those who are already facing spiralling power bills. -–Benny Peiser, Daily Mai, 9 July 2011


I believe there is going to be a U-turn because I believe the government is listening and they’re going to have to face reality. --Ann Robinson, Uswitch, Financial Times, 11 October 2011


One way for the government to make a real difference to energy costs would be to abandon the “renewables obligation” and the carbon floor price. This would cut bills by 13 per cent from 2015, according to Deutsche Bank. --David Blair, Financial Times, 11 October 2011


A steady rise in electricity and gas charges could force the government to reconsider its energy policy, said analysts, particularly an official target to spend £200bn on new infrastructure by 2020, including a big expansion of wind power. “If the rate of increase continues, it would concentrate minds even further and energy costs would rise potentially to the top of the public’s agenda and therefore of the political agenda,” said David Hunter, energy analyst at M&C Energy Group, a consultancy. Mr Hunter described the cost as “eye-watering” and said investors would weigh the possibility of the government reneging on its proposed incentives. --David Blair, Financial Times, 11 October 2011

Are we absolutely certain that the main cause of global warming is carbon and has nothing to do with the output of the Sun, or any of the other theories? With the credibility of some of the data of those dealing with climate change at least open to question, are we absolutely certain that we can afford all these precautions that may not even turn out to be necessary? It would be unfortunate if history recalled that we solved a problem that in the end did not require a solution by tipping the economy into depression. --Lord Young, The Times, 12 October 2011