A consensus of idiots

Cheap energy is one of the foundations for economic prosperity. A country with dear energy makes itself less likely to prosper in a world where competition is global.

Coalition energy policy is based on the discredited theory that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere drives global warming.

Even if the science had been right … even if we were seeing the warming in the troposphere that the theory predicts … even if paleo-climate warming and cooling showed a correlation with CO2 (it does but the CO2 level reacts 800 years later) … even if the science behind government policy had been right … the policy was still rubbish.

As Ross McKitrick explains in his December evidence to the Canadian Senate, if all the Kyoto signatory governments had met their obligations, the level of CO2 expected in 2100 would have been postponed until … 2105. The costs of the policy were too great for it to be implemented, its benefits would have been too small to measure.

It’s this policy prescription that the coalition and the Huhne loon are following to make our energy more expensive. Are the rest of the world following this barmy lead? Well, no. It’s the USA whose example is being followed – Argentina, China and Australia are among those pushing to exploit their shale deposits. Is Cyprus planning to mitigate use of its new gas discovery in favour of wind power? No. The field could make Cyprus self-sufficient in energy for decades or bring huge export revenues, and that’s the way they want it.

Countries with expensive energy will suffer. Brazil’s economy has just outgrown ours, and we will have to strain not to fall further down the global league table.

If – as some scientists suggest – global climate is greatly affected by the sun (who would have guessed it?), the world may be about to cool. Then we will need cheap energy if we are not to see even more of us plunged into fuel poverty.

Properly managed and encouraged, our shale deposits should bring us cheaper energy. DECC can’t embrace that, though. Huhne’s mantra, and the theme of its energy pathways report, is that energy is bound to get dearer, but government action will make it less dear than it would otherwise have been.

This manages to be a lie on several levels. Absent government mismanagement, energy will get cheaper again (see what’s happened in the USA); someone always pays for government action, because governments have no money (the money belongs to the people); and expensive measures to cut use of energy which turns out to get cheaper will be bad value for money.

A policy that would be disastrous even if the science were right. Goodness knows how many billions this Westminster consensus is costing us.

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