You are invited to attend a seminar and discussion

"The Climate Change Act Reconsidered"

1pm-4pm Wednesday 30 November 2011

House of Commons, Committee Room 14

Westminster

London SW1A 0AA

Come via main - St Stephens (Cromwell Green) entrance

Ask for Sammy Wilson's (DUP MP) Meeting

Please allow 40 minutes for security

RSVP Eventbrite ticket required 

Chairperson: Dr Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography at SOAS the University of London, and was Editor-in Chief of the International Journal of Biogeography. 

Speakers:

• Ruth Lea, former Economic Adviser and Director of Arbuthnot Banking Group and Director of Global Vision. She was a Governor of the London School of Economics. Ruth will speak on the impact of the Climate Change Act (including the Renewables Directive) on energy prices, manufacturing and business.

• Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist (winner of the Hayek prize), will speak on the potential for shale gas. 

• Prof Ian Plimer is Australia‘s best-known geologist and author of Heaven and Earth, Global warming: the missing science and How to get expelled from School: a guide to climate change for pupils parents and punters. 

• Donna Laframboise, journalist and author of The Delinquent Teenager who was mistaken for the world‘s top climate expert - an in depth investigation into the IPCC.

“The Climate Change Act Reconsidered” is of great relevance today in light of scientific scandals and the public's loss of trust in costly green climate and energy policies. 

The Climate Change Act is having huge social and economic consequences, which MPs can no longer ignore. The EU's and UK's climate and energy policies are too expensive, too ambitious, too complex - and ineffective.  The government's blind faith in drastically reducing CO2 emissions and liberalising energy markets will profit only a select group of companies and officials at the expense of everyone else. MPs would do well to rethink these policies - before the public rises up in anger.

Under the UK’s Climate Change Act the government is currently legally committed to cutting emissions by 35 per cent by 2022 and 50 per cent by 2025. In contrast, the EU is only committed to cutting emissions 20 per cent by 2020, and while the UK and a number of other countries are lobbying Brussels for this target to be increased to 30 per cent several member states remain resistant to any change. 

At the Conservative Party Conference the Chancellor George Osborne expressed concerns that the climate and energy policy is:

 “piling costs on the energy bills of households and companies” and argued that the government should not adopt green targets that damage the business sector.

“We’re not going to save the planet by putting our country out of business,” he said. “So let’s at the very least resolve that we’re going to cut our carbon emissions no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe.”

He also stressed, "the UK accounts for less than two per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 40 per cent from the US and China, warning that if the UK attempts to cut emissions too quickly carbon intensive businesses will simply migrate overseas.”

Reports also indicate that fuel poverty will kill 2,700 people in the UK this winter, more than were killed in the twin towers terrorist attacks and more than the UK’s road deaths.  Skyrocketing energy bills have forced 6 million households in fuel poverty and the proposed Carbon Floor Price will increase this number to 12 million - that is 1 in 4 households. Recent reports indicate that the ‘Green Deal’ will not work to alleviate this serious problem.  It is time to reconsider the Climate Change Act. 

Please join us and lobby your MP to attend this important debate. Make an appointment to meet your MP at the House of Commons or send your MP this invitation: 

Sign the e-petition to Repeal the Climate Change Act or visit www.repealtheact.org.uk 

Recommended Reading: 

• Sam Arie The Guardian, Five reasons the ‘green deal’ policy on energy saving won’t work

• The Spectator: The Policies Behind Your Energy Bills 

• Analysis of UK Wind Power Generation report March 2011, by John Muir Trust

• Matt Ridley's The Shale Gas Shock report on the shale gas revolution.

• Donna Laframboise, The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert: IPCC Expose 

• George Monbiot, The Guardian, Are we really going to let ourselves be duped into this solar panel rip-off?

• The Economist Debates: Renewables: This house believes that subsidising renewable energy is a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels.  Against the motion: Robert Bradley Jr, Defending the motion: Matthias Fripp

• Nigel Lawson, An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming

• Daniel Ben-Ami, Ferraris for All: In Defence of Economic progress

• Matt Sinclair, Let Them Eat Carbon 

• NIPCC Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report

• Gordon Hughes: The Myth of Green Jobs. Full Report here 

• Robert L. Bradley Jr, Climate Alarmism Reconsidered 

• James Heartfield, Green Capitalism: Manufacturing Scarcity in an Age of Abundance

• Austin Williams, The Enemies of Progress: Dangers of Sustainability

• James Delingpole,The Green Movement’s True Colours