UKWar in WestminsterThe Government threatened to implode over spending cuts. There were signs that the Chancellor wanted to force a scaling back of the ruinously expensive Boiler Upgrade Scheme. Rumours circulated that it would be replaced with a considerably cheaper scheme offering electricity price discounts to heat pump owners. Greens threatened legal action if they didn’t get their way, and with the left-wing of the Parliamentary Party warning of schisms too, Mr Miliband is said to have won out. Mr Miliband is also at loggerheads with No 10 over plans for zonal pricing in the electricity market. Undeterred, he annouced that new-build homes would have to install rooftop solar – an eccentric plan given the UK’s status as the second worst country in the world for solar power. Beating the retreat in ScotlandAhead of a by-election in Scotland, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage gave tongue-lashing to Net Zero, saying it was destroying jobs. It was, he said, ‘the next Brexit’. With the SNP having been shown to have spent millions on green consultants, and with North Sea oil and gas jobs being lost faster than the renewables can add them, decarbonisation has become a handy stick with which Mr Farage can beat the establishment parties. Make amendsManufacturing trade body MakeUK warned that high energy prices represent a major threat to the sector. Net Zero Watch noted that Make UK, in common with many other trade bodies, has been a vocal supporter of decarbonisation policies, and thus of high energy prices (see blog posts below). Wind chaosThe wind industry appeared to be in chaos, with operators bickering over wake effects, and the cost of paying them to switch off soaring out of control. Green fuel ‘a scam’The airline industry warned of the multi-billion pound cost of so-called ‘sustainable aviation fuel’, calling it ‘a scam’.
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