UK energy bills are £2.5bn higher than they would have been had the government not scrapped a number of climate policies over the past decade, according to fresh analysis from Carbon Brief.
This amounts to a loss of roughly £40 per British household per year, rising to £60 next winter. The analysis calculates the combined impact of policy changes made by David Cameron’s coalition government from 2013 onwards under current and future forecast energy price caps.
This includes the removal of the zero-carbon home standard, subsidies for onshore wind, and spending on energy-efficiency measures (which Cameron reportedly described to aides as “the green crap”).
Further analysis from Carbon Brief finds that, contrary to reports, renewables are not to blame for the ongoing energy crisis – a spike in wholesale gas prices is responsible for 90 per cent of the rise in UK energy bills. Since last summer, wholesale gas prices have tripled, whereas climate policy costs have fallen slightly.
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