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02 October 2025 |
Responding to the Conservative Party's announcement on energy, Andy Mayer, Energy Analyst at the free market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: "It is fantastic news that the official Opposition will seek to replace the 2008 Climate Change Act (CCA) in order to prioritise affordable energy security. "Everyone, bar the current Government, ideologues, and vested interests can see current policy isn’t working. We have the most expensive industrial energy in the world, and second most expensive domestic bills directly as a result of the Act’s legally binding targets for emissions. "It has encouraged offshoring and undermined investment in our own resources. But has not delivered innovation. The UK is more a buyer of eco-tech than a maker. It has encouraged green finance, but it is underwritten by taxpayers, and has created a lawfare industry for green ambulance chasers using it to block human progress. "It has created a duplicate energy system of renewables and inefficient gas generation for windless nights, requiring much more infrastructure than the old system, adding cost, but not saving the planet from global warming. The imported oil and gas we still need burns even more fossil fuels to reach us, while those selling to us use the proceeds to ‘drill baby drill’. "The last time any nation made a central planning mistake as large as the CCA, it was the Soviet Union and Gosplan. They at least had the excuse of believing real control had never been tried and were not pretending to be a free country keen on making lives better. "We will need to see more of the Opposition’s plans in detail, and they can expect a furious backlash from rent-seekers, but this is an encouraging first step back to sanity." |
