Climate change policies by the British government are placing significant costs on British energy consumers. According to a report from researchers Ruth Lea and Jeremy Nicholson at the independent think tank Civitas, these costs are expected to drastically increase and will eventually erode the country’s shrinking industrial sector.

Lea and Nicholson point out that climate change policies have already added a ‘surcharge’ on electricity bills—14% for domestic users and 21% for business. But it might get much worse. If all the climate change policies being enacted by the British government are actually implemented, businesses could see their electricity bills rise as much as 70% by 2020, while consumers will have to swallow a 33% increase.

The net costs for the policies? 52-billion to 66-billion pounds ($CAD 80-billion to 102-billion). 

Worse still, these climate change policies will hit British consumers and businesses harder than their continental counterparts, as the UK’s modest renewable energy production will have to ramped up faster than other countries in the EU, while the government seems obsessed with pursuing expensive and intermittent wind power.

Furthermore, officials in the UK have decided to implement tighter carbon-reduction targets than the EU—34 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

Workers take note: the policies mean Britain’s industrial sector will be facing an uphill battle. The authors say that, “in the rush to appear ‘green’, the British authorities seem to have neglected the significant competitiveness implications for many other businesses of their policy decisions.” Industry, it appears, doesn’t factor into the competition of being green.

To top it all off, the overall reduction in carbon is very likely a mirage. The authors say that industrial businesses will move from places like Britain to countries like China, where there is very little political commitment to reduce carbon. The result is that, “this could very well lead to net global increases in carbon emissions associated with British product demand because Chinese emission per unit of output are likely to exceed the equivalent emission from the British plants they could displace, given the greater prevalence of coal-based technology in China.”

Does being unemployed count as living a “green” lifestyle? 

Energy Probe is a keen supporter of renewable energy. We believe renewable energy has the ability to diversify our electricity supply, while allowing for more decentralized sources of power for consumers. But we’re not in favour of throwing massive subsides at forms of energy that are not technically or economically feasible.

Read the previous gangrene economy report, "Banking on green subsidies" here.