Large swathes of the British countryside are to be spared the blight of windfarms by the axing of taxpayer subsidies, Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has revealed. She said about 2,500 proposed turbines in 250 projects are now “unlikely to be built”. Ms Rudd said: “We are reaching the limits of what is affordable, and what the public is prepared to accept.” –John Ingham, Daily Express, 23 June 2015
Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Forum, which argues that many anti-climate change measures are too costly, said: “This announcement is a move in the right direction but it is a bit schizophrenic. The Government is phasing out subsidies for onshore wind but they are still subsiding offshore turbines which are twice as expensive. This will not reduce the overall cost for renewables because that was agreed by the coalition Government a year ago. Under the Levy Control Framework subsidies for renewables will double from ¬£4billion now to about ¬£8billion in 2020.” –John Ingham, Daily Express, 23 June 2015
Former Chancellor Lord Lawson yesterday led the backing for Prince Philip after he branded wind farms ‘absolutely useless’. In a scathing attack, the Duke of Edinburgh said the turbines were ‘completely reliant on subsidies’ and ‘would never work’. His comments are a rebuke to the Government, which is trying to increase the amount of energy generated by wind farms and other renewable technologies. Last night Lord Lawson said the Duke was ‘spot on’ and speaking on behalf of ordinary people in fuel poverty. –Tamara Cohen, Daily Mail, 21 November 2011
If wind power was going to work, it would have done so by now. The people of Britain see this quite clearly, though politicians are often wilfully deaf. The good news though is that if you look closely, you can see David Cameron’s government coming to its senses about the whole fiasco. The political wind has certainly changed direction. George Osborne is dead set against wind farms, because it has become all too clear to him how much they cost. The Chancellor’s team quietly encouraged MPs to sign a letter to No. 10 a few weeks ago saying that ‘in these financially straitened times, we think it is unwise to make consumers pay, through taxpayer subsidy, for inefficient and intermittent energy production that typifies onshore wind turbines’. –Matt Ridley, Spectator, 3 March 2012
The headline “New York warning over Lancashire County Council fracking vote” appeared on the BBC news website this weekend, above a report about how “850 legislators” from New York City had sent a letter to Lancashire County Council, urging them to ditch plans to allow fracking to occur in the northern English county. The truth is, it has just 10 signatories. They’re all left-wing Democrats. And they’re all basically the equivalent of British, parish councillors ‚Äì representing no more than about 75,000 people between them, across little villages and counties in the outskirts of New York State. –Raheem Kassam, Breitbart London, 22 June 2015
The Lancet – the medical journal that brought you Andrew Wakefield and the return of mumps, measles and rubella – has a grandly named Commission on Climate Change and Health, which has announced its findings today. We are facing a crisis apparently. Wake up at the back there. This is fairly transparent politicking from a group of authors who might best be described as “the usual suspects” – Anthony Costello, Hugh Montgomery and Paul Ekins are all very familiar names round these parts and the lines they recite are familiar ones too. –Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 23 June 2015
