The Northamptonshire constituency of Corby may seem a world away from your home and energy bills, but make no mistake, the two are linked.
Our #energygate investigation has revealed the extreme lengths some Tory politicians will go to push their anti-green agenda, including manipulating the Corby by-election.
The #energygate scandal has broken at a crucial time for energy in the UK. It’s now just days before the Energy Bill goes before Parliament. The Bill marks the biggest shake up of the UK’s electricity system for years and will determine how we heat our homes, cook our food and power our industries for decades to come.
There are two paths available to us: investment in clean, domestic, renewable energy, or an increased reliance on gas. Most of the British public want the former. George Osborne and the politicians featured in the #energygate film appear fixated with the latter.
So what’s wrong with gas? Three things: it’s imported, expensive and polluting.
As energy regulator Ofgem explains: "higher gas prices have been the main driver of increasing energy bills over the last eight years". The Government's own climate change advisers found that £290 was added to an average household bill between 2004 and 2010 solely because of gas price hikes. That's ten times more than was added because of green schemes. We saw the same dynamics play out last month, when five of the Big Six energy companies raised their prices, citing wholesale gas prices.
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and others have warned that the only way for the price of gas is up. And we’ve seen this week, with the “Libor-like gas price fixing” story, just how vulnerable households and businesses are to variations in gas prices.
But how bad is gas for the climate?
Although often touted as cleaner than coal, gas is still a highly polluting fossil fuel. Once extraction (which is becoming increasingly energy intensive) and transportation are taken into account, gas can produce up to two-thirds the emissions of coal. Switching from coal to gas is like saying “I think these Marlboros are causing me harm – I’m going to switch to Marlboro Lights.”
The Government’s own independent climate advisors have warned against a dash for gas, saying it would break the UK’s climate targets and could therefore be illegal.
What do consumers want? Less gas. A recent ICM research poll shows 64% of people want their power to come from renewable sources, not fossil fuels.
With a third of UK growth in the past year coming from the green economy, the Energy Bill is an opportunity for the Government to green our electricity supply and create tens of thousands of new jobs.
But what the #energygate investigation reveals is that the people in charge of the most significant changes to our energy supply in decades are at best biased towards the fossil fuel industry and at worst deliberately undermining attempts to tackle climate change and drive green growth.
Chancellor George Osborne, Energy Minister John Hayes and a number of other powerful Conservative politicians are roundly ignoring the economics, the environment and the pressure facing bill payers, choosing instead to appease friends and lobbyists in the fossil fuel industry.
David Cameron needs to take control of his party and remember the green promises he made to voters two years ago. He campaigned for the Climate Change Act, now he needs to defend it.
