Public want wind farms, not fossil fuels

They support the Chancellor in the Government Budget, which fails to ensure the Treasury plays a positive role in this country’s efforts to tackle climate change.

They will cut taxes for fossil fuels and give financial inducements to establish fracking while adding taxes for renewable energy and spend public money on building new roads.

All these measures will exacerbate global warming and will make it far more difficult for the UK to play a leadership role at the crucial global climate summit in Paris in December.

They reflect the Prime Minister’s derogatory statement about “green crap”.

So, the Government has ended support for onshore wind – the cheapest form of renewable energy after solar energy. This ignores the views of two-thirds of the public who support onshore wind while 75% of people say no to fracking. The Government has made it easier for Local Authorities to reject wind farm planning applications while at the same time paved the way to impose fracking on local communities against their will through executive powers in the Infrastructure Act.

Caroline Lucas MP said: “Osborne’s failure to put action on climate change at the heart of the budget is also bad economics.”

A coalition of leading UK businesses has called on George Osborne to prioritise green investment and climate action, warning the UK green economy is ‘at a crossroads’ without clear policy direction.

A further call to action from the Global Commission on the Economy and the Climate, an influential panel of experts, found that by building green cities, mobilising clean energy investment and other

measures, governments can secure up to 96% of extra carbon cuts needed to avoid dangerous global warming while reaping economic benefits.

If the Chancellor was truly concerned about fuel poverty and the bad homes crisis, which results in 65 people on average dying each day in winter, he would make energy efficiency the number one infrastructure investment priority and a legal requirement in the building of much needed new homes and renovation of properties, as they do in Germany.

It is such homes not roads that society needs.

A programme of green jobs, including housing, would make a far greater contribution to job creation than pursuing a damaging policy of more fossil fuels and new roads.

David Penney,

Treasurer, Burnley, Pendle & Rossendale Green Party, Press Officer, Keep East Lancashire Frack Free (KELFF)