This seems entirely sensible, even desirable, to us
A complaint that the Treasury is not greeting each and every green - or climate change related - demand for spending with an open chequebook:
The Treasury is blocking green policies essential to put the UK on track to net zero emissions, imperilling the UK’s own targets and the success of vital UN climate talks, experts have told the Guardian.
A string of policies, from home insulation to new infrastructure spending, have been scrapped, watered down or delayed. Rows about short term costs have dominated over longer term warnings that putting off green spending now will lead to much higher costs in future.
This seems entirely sensible, even desirable, to us. Someone, somewhere, does need to be asking whether any particular piece of expenditure is worth it. Yes, even about climate change. Even if we accept that something must be done it’s still necessary to examine each thing for value:
Boris Johnson is planning to launch a £400 million boiler scrappage scheme offering people £7,000 grants to encourage homeowners to buy low carbon alternatives.
Well, is that worth it?
Energy Catapult Analysis shows that in 2017, the average household generated 2,745 kg of CO2 emissions from heating,
OK, 3 tonnes at the Stern Review’s $80 per tonne is $240 per year. A 2.8% return (note the £7k is sterling) before we even think about the full cost, this is just for the subsidy? No, that might well not be worth it.
Our point though being that someone, somewhere, has to be asking this question. For it is not true that agreement on there being a problem which requires a solution means fiscal incontinence. Quite the opposite - resources are scarce in this universe therefore the larger the problem the more efficient we have to be with our use of said scarce resources.
Even with agreement that climate change must be dealt with it is still true that each bit of dealing with it needs to pass the cost benefit test. If it’s not going to be the Treasury which does this then all wallets are at risk, no?