http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/03/george-osbornes-cold-shoulder-for-the-green-economy?CMP=share_btn_tw
George Osborne’s cold shoulder for the green economy
Damian Carrington, The Guardian.com, Wednesday 3 December 2014.
George Osborne, giving his final Autumn Statement of this parliament, saved his greatest contempt for the nation’s burgeoning green economy till last. Pure politics prevailed, and we are all the worse for it.
Previously, the green economy has been at least mentioned as an aside. There have been insults too – “we’re not going to save the planet by putting our country out of business” – but even that was better than Wednesday’s feat: total silence. The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, as the old saying goes.
Instead, Osborne threw more tax breaks at the “vital” North Sea oil and gas industry, which already enjoys billions in relief. Fracking was mentioned, with the promise that its currently nonexistent revenues will flow into a fund for northern England.
New roads, piling up like a traffic report in the pre-statement news stories, were not matched with support for public transport. Even flying was made cheaper, as air passenger duty is being abolished for children. The £2.3bn for flood defences represents nothing more than an end to earlier cuts, despite wild weather being on the rise.
One would be forgiven for forgetting that as Osborne spoke 194 nations are gathered at UN negotiations attempting to sketch out a global deal to tackle climate change, without which “severe, widespread and irreversible” impacts will strike people and property.
Yet the most incomprehensible aspect of Osborne’s cold shoulder for the green economy is that it offers exactly what he is seeking for the UK economy: plentiful, good jobs in industries that enable the nation to compete internationally, be they in clean energy, engineering expertise or smarter crops. “Our future living standards depend on Britain earning its way in the world,” Osborne said.
Even more galling to those investors seeking the political certainty needed to plough billions into the UK’s green economy, Osborne clearly understood the power of green growth once upon a time. “The global market for green goods and technologies is worth trillions of dollars a year, but with less than a 5% share of that market Britain is failing to take advantage. This has got to change,” he said in 2009, six months before becoming chancellor.
The CBI, the UK’s top business group, heartily agreed and has promoted green growth ever since. The difference between businesses and politicians, said the CBI boss, John Cridland, this week is that once businesses have understood green and growth are allies, they don’t forget it.
So what has happened since 2009, when Osborne pledged his Treasury “will no longer be the cuckoo in the Whitehall nest” on green issues? The answer is as simple as it is depressing. A significant number of Tory MPs and voters loathe greenery, as does Ukip, and there’s a general election coming. The government has gone from the “greenest ever” to cutting the “green crap”; and, if its credibility is shot, why even pretend any more?
The problem is, it really matters. Confidence is key to the green economy in fields such as energy efficiency or offshore wind farms, where big investments must be made up front but are prone to political meddling. Without confidence, fewer investments are made, and they will cost more to fund.
Osborne has put popularity with a Ukip-tinged fringe of the electorate ahead of the national economic and environmental interest. That does not sound to me like a “long-term economic plan [that] is working”.