Neil Collins: The Climate Change Act Must Go, Eventually

Only five MPs voted against the Climate Change Bill in September 2008. In an orgy of self-righteousness, parliament voted near-unanimously to cut the UK’s CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, a date which is past the deadline of at least half of the honourable members who supported it.

Thus was laid the foundation of Britain’s barmy energy policy. This has given us expensive domestic fuel prices in a time of plenty, prevented the building of gas-fired power stations and culminated in the biggest postdated cheque ever written on the UK taxpayer, in the form of the finance for the Hinkley Point power station.

With luck, the UK should avoid power cuts this winter, but it will be close, and dirty, as National Grid admits.

Now the Court of Appeal has lit a tiny candle in the energy gloom, upholding the state’s right to cancel the exemption from the Climate Change Levy for renewables.

This was merely another little bung to the windmill subsidy farmers but Infinis Energy argued that under the Climate Change Act, it could not be removed. The court disagreed.

The sceptics at the Global Warming Policy Foundation describe the Act as “a one-shot rocket, quite without steering and with precious little provision for deceleration … if a change of pace is not possible, abrupt termination becomes inevitable”.

Repeal of this ill-starred legislation is a long way away but the court has taken a baby-step.