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Sacrificing jobs for no green benefit: Huhne's blinkered and dogmatic policies are self-contradictory
The present governments approach to climate-change policies will actually undermine the UKs ability to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. By pricing energy-intensive industries out of the UK via green levies and taxes, the greenest government ever is actually smothering the emerging low-carbon economy at birth. The new plans for a 60% reduction in emissions by 2030 are too much, too soon.
Chain Reactions, a report released next week by independent think-tank Civitas, draws on the example of the economically vital but energy-intensive chemical industry: it produces a myriad of environmentally-beneficial products such as catalysts and insulation. Author David Merlin-Jones argues the best way to tackle climate change is not through the hasty decimation of industry but the long-term nurturing of existing low-carbon innovation as found in the chemical sector.
