London environmental campaigners and renewable energy advocates have labelled the Conservative Party’s pledge to roll back two renewable energy schemes ‘foolish and regressive’.
The party announced last week that it would abolish the carbon tax and the Renewables Obligation (RO) scheme were it to gain power, claiming this would save the average household £165 a year – an assertion which has been hotly contested by a number of environmental groups.
The carbon tax puts a cost on fossil fuel emissions in order to give emitters a financial incentive to reduce their greenhouse gas output, while the RO ensures that energy providers source a certain amount of the energy they supply from renewable sources.
Speaking to the Londoners, environmental activist Dominique Palmer said: “Transitioning to renewable energy means that we have homegrown, stable energy, and this is something that will in the long term actually lower people’s energy bills.
“To say the opposite is just incorrect.”
Opposition to the announcement was also expressed by many in environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and WWF, alongside renewable energy advocates, who argued the measures would leave the UK more dependent on expensive fossil fuels.
Gareth Simkins – a project manager at Croydon Community Energy, as well as senior communications advisor at Solar Energy UK – said of the announcement: “It’s foolish and regressive.
“The fundamental problem with the electricity industry as a whole is that the pricing is based on the most expensive supplier to the market, and that is almost exclusively natural gas.”
“This measure is shortsighted in the extreme.”
This pledge comes as part of a wider debate on how bills could be cut amidst the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
The Conservative Party said: “The carbon tax currently makes up around a third of wholesale electricity prices, artificially inflating the price of electricity and forcing up everyone’s energy bills in the process.”
“The Conservatives will also scrap Ed Miliband’s rip off renewable subsidies, the renewable obligation certificate scheme…[which] mean[s] renewable energy producers receive significantly above market payments for their electricity – up to three times more than the market price of electricity.
“Consumers are then forced to pay for these extortionate prices through their energy bills.”
This announcement follows Kemi Badenoch’s announcement a fortnight ago that the party would bin the Climate Change Act 2008, a legally binding framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The Conservative Party has been approached for comment.
Featured image credit: Martyn Wheatley CCHQ / Parsons Media via Flickr
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