Will Government’s new plans for ‘green levies’ result in carbon-taxing us to a standstill?
The truth of the matter is the average Brit barely pollutes the planet’s air at all, compared to the rest of the world. We Brits aren’t the problem — we are only the world’s 65th CO2 gas emitter, per capita
We Brits have a right to know this because in the next few years our lives are going to change beyond recognition all in the name of climate change and all of us are going to pay for that change and it's going to leave everyone with less money in our purses and wallets.
Yesterday in Parliament the Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, revealed the Government’s plans for carbon-neutral transport in the post-Covid world. If you ever want to leave your home in the future — and are allowed to do so by the Government — this affects you.
I am going to provide some basic but vital information in order to set the backdrop to this contentious issue. As always I will use official sources for all the facts, even if I doubt them so that climate change extremists have nowhere to go because believe me it's the climate change extremists the minority again who are driving this forward, and their extreme views are going cost you and me a fortune.
So with this in mind, I will start by asking two basic questions
- How much is the average British person responsible for, in terms of CO2 gas emissions?
- Given that there are 67 million of us, where does this put the UK in terms of total world output?
British people barely pollute the planet’s air at all, compared to the rest of the world
(All figures are the latest available, for 2019. See sources below.)
1. The UK’s average CO2 gas emissions per person
- The average British person is the 65th-ranked emitter in the World
- Average CO2 per capita in the UK: 5.5 tonnes
- This compares with Australians and Americans on over 16 tonnes each
- Even ‘green-obsessed’ Canadians are on 15.4 tonnes per person
2. The UK’s total CO2 output compared to other countries
- The UK’s total output is 369.9 million tonnes and is ranked 17th in the World
- By comparison, China’s is 10,175 million tonnes (27 times higher)
- The World’s top 10 emitters account for a full 2/3rds of the entire World’s emissions
- The UK accounts for just 1% of World emissions, despite being the World’s 5th largest economy
Sources: Oxford’s Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2020) — “CO₂ and Greenhouse Gas Emissions” using OWID conversions from the Global Carbon Project (2020). Supplemental data of Global Carbon Budget 2020 (Version 1.0). All data conforms to the standards of the IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
During my research on climate change in recent months, it has seemed to me that there is more data on this than tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere. A great deal of this information is highly technical and I consider a lot of the studies to be dubious, based on false premises and funded by ‘interested parties. This is why I have focused on the ‘official’ information, even if I have our doubts about some of this as well.
Governments are making plans for your lives right now
Yesterday the Transport Secretary started outlining some of the Government’s latest thinking on climate change measures in the United Kingdom. These will affect every man, woman and child in the country — financially and in terms of future lifestyle and freedoms. At the very least these deserve the most intense scrutiny.
In addition, yesterday in Brussels the EU outlined its own proposals for carbon taxing.
At this point, I can be sure of two things
- These ‘green policies’ are going to cost each of us a great deal of money, and
- The UK Government’s and the EU’s directions of travel are….. well….. for us not to travel
The right to know
Whatever the rights and wrongs and necessities, I can also be sure of one more thing. The public should be fully informed about what is being proposed in their name — and the full nature, scope, and costs of the consequences — but they won’t be. Well, I would like to do my bit in putting this right.
