Europe’s climate policies are probably unnecessary, certainly ineffectual, and ruinously expensive – unnecessary, because the whole theory of anthropogenic global warming is looking increasingly shaky. Intergovernmental panel on climate change predictions are failing. There’s been no warming for 17 years. Check Fritz Vahrenholt’s book ‘The Neglected Sun’ to see why the sun almost certainly matters more than CO2.
[pullquote]EU climate policy is ineffectual, both because there are 1200 coal-fired power stations in the global pipeline, and because the savings claimed for intermittent renewables are largely lost in the inefficiency of the fossil-fuel back-up[/pullquote].
America has cheap shale gas. China and India have cheap coal. Meanwhile, EU policies are forcing energy intensive business off-shore, taking their jobs and their investment with them, and driving households and pensioners into fuel poverty. It is by no means unduly alarmist to say that thousands of elderly people in Europe will die of winter cold as a direct result of EU climate policies.
Fortunately, the EU institutions are starting to get the message. Energy commissioner Günther Oettinger says that Europe can no longer afford a unilateral climate policy. Industry and entrepreneurship commissioner Antonio Tajani says we are creating “an industrial massacre” in Europe. British prime minister David Cameron is reported as privately demanding, “How do we get rid of the green crap?” My party, UKIP, says we need grown-up energy technologies like coal, gas and nuclear – not playground technologies like wind and solar. We need to focus on affordability, competitiveness and security of supply. We need to develop indigenous gas resources in Europe.