Government efforts to combat climate change are being deliberately undermined by elements of the Conservative Party, a Liberal Democrat Cabinet minister is claiming.
Energy Secretary Ed Davey says attempts by some Tories – combined with the UK Independence Party – to discredit the scientific evidence of climate change threaten a breakdown of the political consensus on the issue.
In a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank, he will accuse critics of Government policy of a “wilfully ignorant, head in the sand, nimby-ist conservatism”, ignoring the risks of a world in which extreme weather events were much more likely.
He will say that such attitudes combined with the entrenched Euroscepticism of some Conservatives is creating a “diabolical cocktail” which could undermine efforts to achieve international agreement on a way forward.
“I fear that on climate change and energy policy, political consensus is in danger of breaking down,” he is expected to say.
“From the right, fringes of the Conservative Party and Ukip are parroting the arguments of the most discredited climate change deniers, seizing on any anomaly in the climate data to attempt to discredit the whole.
“This is undermining public trust in the scientific evidence for climate change overwhelming though it is. This type of climate change denying conservatism is wilfully ignorant, head in the sand, nimby-ist conservatism.
“And when married to the Europhobia innate to parts of the Conservative party, you have a diabolical cocktail that threatens the whole long-term structure of UK climate change and energy policy.
“If you accept the logic of climate change, you have to accept the logic of European co-operation to tackle it. Because we can only remain competitive, be energy secure, and tackle emissions by acting together with our major trading bloc – our neighbours – our partners.
“And we can only influence the world’s biggest carbon emitters – China and the US – by speaking together as one.”
Mr Davey will argue that Labour’s plan for an “artificial” 20 month freeze in energy prices would also damage efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
“It will in fact threaten investment in energy security, push up prices for consumers in the long run, destroy competition by solidifying the power of the ’Big Six’ (energy companies) and do nothing at all to reduce emissions,” he will say.
“Indeed if it threatens investment in low-carbon generation, it could represent a step back for the climate.”
