The spectre at the climate change feast

Today the TaxPayers’ Alliance is releasing a new report which sets out the huge and excessive burden that green taxes impose on families and business across the UK.

At the moment, 14 percent of domestic bill costs are the result of climate change policies.  Increasing the price of energy hits the poor and elderly hardest – which, in turn, increases poverty and benefit dependency.  At the same time, 21 percent of industrial electricity bills are the result of climate change policies.  If we want to make our economy less dependent on financial services, driving up a major part of many manufacturing firms’ costs isn’t the way to do it.

Despite these costs, the current approach doesn’t appear to be achieving the desired cuts in emissions.  It is hard to establish this empirically, as we don’t know what level emissions would be at without current policies.