The following is taken from a response provided to a member of the public, confused ("baffled") by the seemingly contradictory stances of being committed to our environmental protection whilst also being opposed to Net Zero.
Dear friend,
You told us that you were really interested in the Workers Party but baffled where the Party stands on climate change.
Perhaps you are baffled because you expect a party of the Left to be in favour of Net Zero and we aren't. This would be understandable because of a perception held by many idealistic people on the Left that big business wants to go on polluting the planet with carbon emissions, thereby causing climate change, and so the state should step in to stop it and achieve Net Zero principally by promoting green energy.
Sadly that perception is mistaken in every aspect. Well intentioned people are being taken for a ride.
To begin with, swathes of big business see Net Zero as a wonderful business opportunity. Energy companies are delighted to sup subsidies at the teat of government, and subsidies is the name of the game. This is why green billionaires have been so prominent in supporting the Green Party, Labour and previously Johnson's Tories. Examples are Sir Christopher Hohn, Dale Vince and Octopus Energy's Greg Jackson. After all, many businesses can simply pass on to customers price hikes necessitated by green regulation, and when industries shed workers it's not company directors who get laid off.
Green energy (renewables i.e. wind and solar) is not cheaper than oil and gas when associated costs are taken into account (the need to maintain a parallel system of traditional energy sources to cope with the intermittency of wind and solar, gigantic costs of the grid expansion necessitated by the electrification of everything, compensation costs to wind billionaires when they have to pause their supply, again because of intermittency). Claims that renewables are cheaper are fraudulent. If renewables were cheaper they would not need subsidies and Britain would not have the highest industrial electricity prices in the world and some of the highest domestic electricity prices.
These high prices are the major reason for the accelerating de-industrialisation we are witnessing in this country. After the deliberate running down of the oil and gas industries steel and the automotive industries have shrunk, with cement, chemicals and glass all ailing. Farming is under stress. Energy costs in the US are one quarter of ours.
The fabled 'green jobs' the likes of Ed Miliband touts are just that, fables, mostly empty promises and where real wholly dependent on public subsidies.
Workers are being hit with a triple whammy by the mad pursuit of Net Zero: losing their jobs or being worried about losing them, paying sky high domestic energy prices, and paying higher taxes to fund all the subsidies that keep the green merry go round twirling.
Where is the money coming from to provide businesses and more affluent consumers with tax incentives and subsidies to buy EVs (Electric Vehicles) and heat pumps respectively, which otherwise will not sell? From the taxes workers pay, of course. How progressive is that?
Starting to be a bit less baffled?
Net Zero is in fact the greatest threat to workers' welfare since Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher, as it happens, was the first world leader to show much interest in climatism. Why? Because she saw how it could be used to bring down the coal industry and defeat the coal miners.
Still, you might say, we have to do the right thing and try to save the planet. This might be true if all the following conditions held:
- global warming is at crisis point
- warming is caused by too much CO2
- humans generate most CO2
- Britain's role is crucial
All these propositions are open to question, and if a single one of them is flawed the whole shaky edifice falls down.
No-one seriously disputes that climate change is happening. Climate is always evolving. But experts whose positions and salaries do not depend on the climatism industry see only mild warming, with beneficial effects (fewer winter deaths, greening of marginal desert areas in Africa) outweighing downside effects. Nobel Prize winners and a former founder of Greenpeace are among those who question the foundational claims of warmism. Discussion in the media and academe, however, is taboo because of the hold of green ideology over both and the vested interests involved.
Even if the warmists' theories were true, the sacrifices demanded of British workers would be pointless in a world in which the major emitters, the US, China and India, are increasing emissions. The UK is a world leader down a path others are clearly determined not to go down. Even if the UK stopped emissions completely it would not make a scrap of difference to the world climate as we only account for less than 1% of emissions.
The Green Party exploit people's idealism to foist their beliefs and lifestyles on us all. They were prominent supporters of the authoritarian Climate and Nature Bill which was introduced in January but remains thankfully in limbo. This Bill would crucify industry on the rack of increased regulation, take away land rights, force up energy prices, risk blackouts, force people to curtail meat consumption and take power away from elected representatives to give it to quangos and 'citizens' assemblies' stuffed with green fanatics.
The Green Party are also quite content with increased military spending, tying our defence policy to the EU's and confronting Russia. The Greens are not as nice as they look.
I hope this clarifies where the Workers Party stands. We would have a referendum on Net Zero and give the people a chance to vote on it in full cognizance of the facts, not the fairy stories they have been fed.
Best regards
Peter Ford
Deputy Leader