Affordability and decarbonisation must not be prioritised ahead of security of the UK’s energy supply, according to a House of Lords committee. The Economic Affairs Committee said in a report released today ‚Äì The Price of Power: Reforming the Electricity Market ‚Äì that decarbonisation should be achieved at the lowest cost to consumers. “This may mean waiting for the development of new technologies which can reduce emissions,” the committee said. “The government should make sure that the pace of reductions is flexible and not a rigid path to be achieved at all costs,” it added. —RE News, 24 February 2017
Ministers were last night urged to come clean about the explosion in green levies by publishing the cost in household power bills. Furious peers said green subsidies will make up around a QUARTER of the typical electricity bill by 2020 ‚Äì but the public had no idea they were picking up the tab. It came as a cross-party Lords Committee blamed the levies and other disastrous Government interventions for pushing electricity prices sky-high. They warned the 58 per cent surge in prices over the past decade was forcing manufacturers to move overseas. They called for an end to most subsidies and the creation of a new Energy Commission to monitor affordability. –Steve Hawkes, The Sun, 24 February 2017
The Economic Affairs Committee in its report “The Price of Power: Reforming the Electricity Market” has stated that constant intervention by successive governments in the electricity sector has led to an opaque, complicated, and uncompetitive market that fails to deliver low cost and secure electricity. —House of Lords, 24 February 2017
More than 300 scientists have urged President Trump to withdraw from the U.N.’s climate change agency, warning that its push to curtail carbon dioxide threatens to exacerbate poverty without improving the environment. In a Thursday letter to the president, MIT professor emeritus Richard Lindzen called on the United States and other nations to “change course on an outdated international agreement that targets minor greenhouse gases,” starting with carbon dioxide.
“Since 2009, the US and other governments have undertaken actions with respect to global climate that are not scientifically justified and that already have, and will continue to cause serious social and economic harm — with no environmental benefits,” said Mr. Lindzen, a prominent atmospheric physicist. Signers of the attached petition include the U.S. and international atmospheric scientists, meteorologists, physicists, professors and others taking issue with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC], which was formed in 1992 to combat “dangerous” climate change. –Valerie Richardson, The Washington Times, 23 February 2017
