What Does The Tory Manifesto Say About Climate Policy?

By Paul Homewood

 

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-results-2019-maps-breakdown-constituency/

 

There are, of course, many factors which have influenced this general election, including Brexit, anti-semitism and the extreme, Marxist policies put forward by Corbyn.

However, I think what we can say is that climate change has had very little effect at all in the way people voted.

We must remember that Labour put forward a detailed and extremely expensive set of proposals, which I dissected here. It would have been even more extreme if the Trades Unions had not blocked some of the more potty policies. Yet their vote has plummeted.

Meanwhile the Green vote has barely gone up.

In my view we cannot simply dismiss all of the parties as being the same when it come to climate policy, despite the apparent consensus. That was why FOE scored Labour so high and Tories so low in their green scorechart, retweeted by Harrabin here. 

So let’s see exactly what the Tory manifesto actually says about climate policy:

 

There is talk of international partnerships, but in terms of concrete action all we have is:

• Investing in R&D and EV infrastructure
• More offshore wind
• £800m for CCS
• £500m for industry
• “Supporting” gas for hydrogen production
• £9.2bn for energy efficiency schemes
• Consulting on a phase out date for petrol and diesel cars.
• Plant more trees

1) We await the budget, but I strongly suspect that the amounts available R&D and charging points will be tiny, and will have virtually no impact at all.

2) We currently have 20 GW of offshore wind power either already operational or awarded CfDs, and due on stream by around 2025. This would suggest an further 20 GW to be built between 2025 and 2030.

How 40 GW of offshore wind, along with the existing 14 GW of onshore wind, can be safely integrated into the grid will be one of the cans kicked down the road. What we can say though is that there will be many days when wind power will exceed total demands on the grid, even before allowing for baseload nuclear output.

But even if all of the wind output can be used, it will only reduce UK emissions of carbon dioxide by about 5%.

3) £800m for a CCS cluster is again chicken feed. The £1bn competition to develop CCS at Peterhead and Drax launched by Ed Davey in 2013 soon collapsed, after concerns that it would be money down the drain.

Similarly £500m for industry to develop low-carbon technology is likely to prove a pittance. Businesses are more likely to offshore if extra costs are imposed upon them.

4) I’m not quite sure what “supporting hydrogen production” means, but I suspect it is little more than window dressing. The Committee on Climate Change have already estimated that it could cost £100 billion simply to convert household appliances for hydrogen use. On top of that is the cost of building hydrogen producing plants and networks.

My guess is that we will see no more than a few million allocated for tests and small pilot plants.

5) £9.2bn for energy efficiency schemes over 5 years is also a pretty small sum, which will have very little effect on energy usage. Prof Michael Kelly recently estimated that the cost of retrofitting British homes could amount to £3 trillion.

6) Consulting on phasing out of petrol and diesel cars. Again , this sounds like an excuse for kicking the problem into the long grass.

 

All in all, there is very little of any substance here, other than offshore wind, which is already pretty much factored into government plans.

As I have repeated ad nauseam, the actions taken so far to reduce emissions have been relatively easy, if extremely expensive. It does not need rocket science to build heavily subsidised wind and solar farms, or convert Drax to burn wood. The costs have been hidden away on energy bills, with the subsequent rises blamed on “wicked” energy companies.

Most of the low hanging fruit however has now been picked. Further large scale decarbonisation will be extremely expensive and will have a substantial and detrimental effect on the lives of ordinary people.

So far, the government has chosen to kick the can down the road, leaving future governments to take the flak. This new Tory manifesto continues this strategy, pretending that new technology will solve all of our problems eventually.

Maybe there is some hope that future governments will be just as reluctant to face up to the catastrophic economic reality of zero carbon.

Meanwhile climate action seems to be well down the list of priorities of most voters.