Nothing could be further from the truth. There is every reason to be concerned about climate change, and, while we don’t fully understand it, the likelihood is that we are playing some part in this phenomenon. An insurance policy is a good idea, but it has to be smart; the premium paid has to be proportional to the risk, and the policy has to offer some real cover. The costs of the current approach, however, are extreme, and the contribution to preventing climate change negligible. Far from being a denier (whatever that means) I see myself and others like me as taking climate change rather more seriously than those who are attempting to drive through a policy of command and control which is bound to fail. At least my suggestion has some chance of success.
So here is what we plan to do. The Buckingham Energy Institute will be both a research and educational organisation. Its major research effort will be to make large databases freely available to the public. The energy sector in the UK is still unacceptably opaque, and since there are levies on bills in order to pay for climate policies, government itself has little interest in transparency. We’ll address this by expanding the REF’s well-known renewable energy databases to cover all generators in the UK, and then other fuels, and then other jurisdictions. We aim to become the largest independent provider of energy market data.
Having this information publicly available will encourage new market entrants and new, disruptive technologies. By allowing consumers to see every detail of the market, it will also restore public confidence in energy producers – confidence that has been severely damaged by an unhealthily cosy relationship with government . Alongside this work, and grounded in it, we will begin by teaching short courses on emergent topics in energy policy.
The free flow of information is crucial to replacing the failed climate policies. The fact is that nobody yet knows how to reduce emissions without destroying the hard-won and irreplaceable wealth of several thousand years of economic growth. This problem is so difficult that a search for a solution depends on engaging the minds of the entire population, not just experts and civil servants. That means putting as much knowledge as possible in as many hands as possible.
But it also means that there has to be a clear economic signal, which I think is best provided by putting a consistent, economy-wide price on carbon, probably through a carbon tax with corresponding offsets in other taxation. This would be flexible, so economic harm could be kept under control, and it would be technology-neutral, allowing the economy to gravitate towards the cheapest ways of reducing emissions that human ingenuity can discover.
In short, the Buckingham Energy Institute wants to bring the general public, from households to businesses, back into energy policy as free and active economic decision makers, not passive victims of central administrative instructions. Many in environmental circles regard such liberal views with horror, and prefer force and subterfuge to impose a ‘planned’ low-carbon economy. But this is deeply mistaken, and will end in disaster. Only by entrusting human creativity with all the relevant information is there any chance of addressing climate change.
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