UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he is becoming ‘more and more obsessed’ with COP26 (the United Nations climate conference which Britain is hosting later this year).
‘The green agenda is not just a load of green nonsense,’ he claims. ‘If you do it right, it’s the opportunity to create hundreds of thousands of jobs.’
Possibly this is good news for Johnson, who, as a reward for this nonsense, may now get more nookie from his eco-activist girlfriend Carrie Symonds (aka Princess Nut Nut). But it will be an absolute disaster for the country at large, as a number of recent reports and articles make clear.
A recent analysis by a senior economist at Deutsche Bank, for example, says that the way the European Union is selling its ‘Green Deal’ is ‘dishonest’ and poses massive risks for prosperity, the economic system and democracy itself.
In the report, titled Climate Neutrality: Are We Ready for an Honest Discussion?, Eric Heymann warns that the EU’s green ambitions of ‘Net Zero’ Carbon emissions cannot be achieved without a fall in standards of living, a reduction in international competitiveness, and a loss in personal freedom.
At the moment, he notes, we all get to take key consumption decisions — “whether we travel at all, how much we travel and which means of transport we use, whether we live in a large house or a small apartment and how we heat our homes, how many electronic devices we have and how intensely we use them or how much meat and exotic fruit we eat” — on the basis of ‘income, not on climate considerations.’
If we are to achieve “climate neutrality”, we will need to “change our behaviour in all these areas of life” because it is impossible to do any of the above things in a “carbon neutral” way. The only way this is likely to happen, he warns, is through government compulsion.
Heymann warns:
I know that ‘eco-dictatorship’ is a nasty word. But we may have to ask ourselves the question whether and to what extent we may be willing to accept some kind of eco-dictatorship (in the form of regulatory law) in order to move towards climate neutrality.
This, Heymann goes on to say, will lead to “massive political resistance” because “prosperity and employment are likely to suffer considerably.”
Let’s repeat that phrase for the dimmer kids at the back of the class, Johnson.
Prosperity and employment are likely to suffer considerably.
This makes a nonsense of Johnson’s airy claim that his green revolution will create “hundreds and thousands of new jobs.” Of course it won’t. There is plenty of evidence to support Heymann’s claim. None to support Johnson’s.
I pointed this out in June last year in a piece titled Britain Unleashes a Green New Deal to Kill What’s Left of the Economy.
For example, a study by economics professor Dr Gabriel Calzada Alvarez of Madrid’s University of Rey Juan Carlos found that for every ‘green job’ created by the Spanish government, another 2.2 jobs were destroyed in the real economy.
Another study, this time in the UK, found that for every green job created by government ‘investment’ in the renewables industry, 3.7 jobs were destroyed in the real economy.
More recently, a report by the think tank Onward has warned that ten million jobs in ‘Red Wall’ seats (i.e. traditional Labour constituencies in the Midlands and North which lent their votes to the Conservatives in the 2019 election so that Johnson could deliver Brexit) face being wiped out in Johnson’s attempt to reach his ‘net-zero by 2050’ emissions target.
This might suit Johnson and his green crony capitalist chums in the Westminster bubble, but as Paul Homewood notes, metropolitan greenies will largely insulated from the disastrous effects of their eco-fascist policies in the country at large.
The climate change agenda is being driven by the metropolitan liberal consensus in London, where few jobs will be at risk.
Outside of London there is little support for Net Zero, but people there have little say in policy decisions. Polling may suggest otherwise, but the public have been deliberately kept in the dark about the real costs and implications involved.
Boris Johnson’s green revolution is a slow motion train crash in the making. Even those invested in ‘climate change’ as a genuine threat are starting to wake up to the problem.
Here, for example, is market strategist and investor Bill ‘I absolutely believe climate change is the biggest challenge humanity faces’ Blain writing at CapX.
The brutal reality is offshore wind is far less efficient than promised and requires much more expensive maintenance. They break down, sink into their foundations and don’t generate anything like the power expected. For all the due diligence, they simply won’t ever make any money unless the price at which they sell energy is dramatically increased – at which point they make zero sense.
[It goes, almost without saying, that ‘offshore wind’ will be playing a major part in Boris Johnson’s green revolution – the one that will supposedly create those ‘hundreds of thousands of jobs’]
Blain sees the makings of a ‘financial crash’ driven by the renewables sector, for wind turbines are not the panacea they may look to gullible investors.
This will feel very familiar to many investors who have seen all the blithe assumption about operating and maintenance costs on all kinds of technological green marvels fail to meet expectations. Biowaste generators, biomass, thermal pellets – you name it, and the rosy assumptions failed to materialise because the difficulties in making them work and keeping them working were glossed over by the promoters.
Most of the smart money already knew that about renewables and is deeply sceptical. The not-so-smart money still laps the deals up. Sadly, renewables is likely to become another charming but flawed investment thesis. I am no stranger to investment madness – three times I’ve invested in airships and lost my dosh every time.
Boris Johnson’s obsession with green issues is steering the UK economy to disaster. He needs to go now.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.