Contrary to Government claims, EU green energy policies are predicted to destroy tens of thousands of British jobs, a series of studies have shown.
In a book by John Constable titled The Green Mirage, claims that the low-carbon economy can deliver so-called “green collar” jobs are staggeringly far-fetched and unsupported by official measures.
In his book, Mr Constable examines the empirical evidence from existing green policies, as well as the European Commission’s future projections. Both suggest that the economic benefits to Europe as a whole will be marginal at best, and non-existent for Britain.
The report examines the results of a series of economic models developed for the EU Commission, EmployRES (2009). Their research predicts that the EU-27’s ambitious climate policies will have only ‘slight’ net positive benefits in terms of GDP and employment in 2020.
This “slight” positive outcome is not evenly spread across the EU. Spain is the biggest winner on most of the Commission’s optimistic export scenarios. Spain gains an estimated 120,000 net jobs via current green policies, and over 150,000 if green subsidies are accelerated.
But Britain loses 10,000 jobs with current green policies and 30,000 jobs if those policies are accelerated. In other words, the more green technologies are subsidised by the EU, the greater the predicted net loss for British workers.
In another study, called Chain Reactions by David Merlin-Jones, it was shown that the government’s green taxes will spell the end for Britain’s chemical industry, which employs 200,000 directly, an additional 400,000 indirectly, and accounts for 15% of UK exports.
The sector, much of which is found in North East England, will be the victim of the race to cut emissions by 34% from 1990 levels by 2020: more than any other country’s target.
Moreover, this approach by the ‘greenest government ever’, will actually undermine the UK’s ability to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and will smother the emerging low-carbon economy at birth.
Yet another study, titled British Energy Policy And The Threat To Manufacturing Industry, by Ruth Lea and Jeremy Nicholson, has examined the impact of Government policy on energy prices.
The authors argue that the Government’s aim to reduce carbon emissions and its interlinked objective of increasing the proportion of energy generated from renewable sources, are incurring significant costs on energy consumers.
Business electricity bills already incur a 21% ‘surcharge’ because of “green” commitments.
They cite evidence that the Government’s climate change strategy is hiking up electricity bills. For example, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) estimated in 2008 that the “surcharge” on electricity prices, attributable to climate-change policies, amounted to an extra 14% for domestic users and 21% for business.
Furthermore, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)’s Renewable Energy Strategy (2009) suggested that these surcharges could be as high as 33% and 70% by 2020 respectively.
Lea and Nicholson highlight the two major legislative commitments responsible:
1. The Climate Change Act (2008) – including a legally binding target of at least an 80% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
2. The EU’s Renewables Directive (2008) – under which the UK must meet 15% of its final energy consumption through renewable sources by 2020.
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This is the underlying reason behind rising energy prices – ie the requirement that electriticy companies purchase a given amount of their energy from costly ‘green’ sources, such as expensive wind turbines.
A further reason is the rise in oil prices, not least caused by the fall in Sterling.
The end result will be a de-industrialised UK.
The collapse in UK living standards, relative to the developing world, will pave the way for international governance.