The Climate Change Committee (CCC) is an “independent” (translation: unaccountable) body charged with helping the U.K. tackle climate change, a fruitless task given the size of the British economy. The U.K. can do what it wants, but it won’t change the global climate. And the idea that the world will be inspired by Britain’s example is laughable, an embarrassing post-colonial delusion.
The CCC is chaired by one Lord Deben (the former John Gummer), a Tory of sorts, distinguished mainly by the mediocrity of his political career, and remembered, if anything, for feeding his four-year-old a hamburger at the height of the Mad Cow panic.
Keen green that he is, Gummer takes gardening seriously, even if his methods can be ruthless as this Guardian report (May 2009) on Britain’s parliamentary expenses scandal reveals (my emphasis added):
The latest tranche of leaks will also embarrass former Tory cabinet minister John Gummer, who reportedly claimed £100 a year on parliamentary expenses to rid his Suffolk estate of moles, and allegedly wrote his own receipts for other maintenance work. The former environment secretary used the parliamentary expenses system to claim more than £9,000 a year for gardening and received hundreds of pounds for costs such as removing jackdaw nests, tackling insect infestations and an annual “rodent service” contract . . .
Leaked letters also suggested that parliamentary officials became concerned that Gummer was not producing receipts to justify his claims, prompting him to forward a number of almost identical statements from gardeners, cleaners and others.
And, of course, the sustainability ecosystem being what it is, Deben is chairman of Sancroft, “an international sustainability consultancy” and winner, no less, of the “best ESG advisory/consultancy at the Private Equity Service Providers 2020 Awards hosted by The Drawdown, one of the leading media companies focused on driving excellence in the private equity sector”.
Anyway, via the Daily Telegraph:
In its 619 page report, the CCC ventures into potentially even more sensitive territory of lifestyle choices. It recommends the Government pay more attention to behavioural changes – nudging people towards greener choices, such as eating less meat and flying less.
I think we know what form that “nudging” will take, particularly when it comes to flying.
And also from the U.K. (again, via the Daily Telegraph) on the same report, this little detail:
Electric cars face being fitted with tracking devices under proposals for a pay-per-mile road taxation system put forward by the Government’s own climate advisers. . . .
On electric cars, the CCC said a “sensible and fair” approach would see the costs covered by drivers, rather than general taxation, arguing that some form of “road pricing” is needed under which drivers are charged for how much they drive.
Just remember that when policy-makers tell voters that EVs will be cheaper to drive, particularly in Europe, where gas taxes are very high.
And now put on your tinfoil hats:
Potential approaches, [the CCC] added, range from “a simple charge per mile driven, which could be levied based on annual odometer checks, to more sophisticated schemes that vary the charge based on the time of day or the location/type of road being used, based on vehicle tracking technologies.”
Somehow, I suspect that the “more sophisticated schemes” will end up being the schemes that, ultimately, are chosen. Frogs, boiling water, and all that.
And, while we are on the subject of the U.K.’s environmental policy, note this extract from a recent editorial in the Critic on Boris Johnson, Britain’s broken prime minister:
No one forced Theresa May to put into law, as one of her last acts in office, the disastrous and delusional Net Zero policies her successor inherited and has championed but who may (or may not) be abandoning before we’re reduced to prostrating ourselves before Moscow the way Germany does.
While this charade dates back, before Mrs May, to the showy green stylings of David Cameron, it was Johnson’s choice to continue with this extremism, and double down on it. No one doubts the prime minister’s ability to wriggle out of declarations of love but, while environmentally infatuated, he has done this country real and unnecessary damage.
And then read the rest of the editorial.