Honest Common Sense: Another open letter to my MP

Dear Mr Hunt,

You will no doubt be aware of the recent report “Clean Air, Dirty Money, Filthy Politics,” written by investigative journalist Ben Pile for the Together organization, of which I am a member. It documents how a large, opaque network of funding, originating from four rich billionaires, has operated to channel resources to many organizations that are active in favour of “net zero” and other green policies. You will also probably be aware that, when this report was published, both the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail picked up on parts of its content, and in particular the funding by billionaire Christopher Hohn of a climate activist network called “C40 Cities” [[1]], which is chaired by Sadiq Khan.

You may not be aware that last week, Andrea Jenkyns MP hosted a discussion on this report in parliament: [[2]]. I am taking the liberty of copying this to her, if only to thank her for her kind words, and to suggest some further climate related areas in which she (and you, and other MPs) ought to find some interest.

I have heard that, following on from this occasion, a number of MPs are being asked to sign a pledge whose wording, if I have it right, is as follows: “The public must have transparency into funding on Net Zero policies, and a proper cost-benefit analysis of Net Zero.” Naturally, I am fully in agreement with this idea, and would hope that you would be, too. But while the first part of the pledge all but goes without saying, on the second part I am able to supply some further information which should be of interest. Not just to yourself and Andrea Jenkyns, but to all MPs who are concerned that their constituents ought to be treated justly, fairly and honestly, and should receive full value for the vast sums they pay to government.

I do apologize if you find what I have written below rather long and a bit technical. But I feel it is important to document the back-story of this issue in as much detail as is needed to enable people to appreciate fully what is being done to them over this.

The Green Book. As chancellor and thus its current custodian, you will be aware of the green book [[3]], a set of procedures meant to guide cost versus benefit analyses carried out by the UK government. You will also be aware of its history since its inception in 2003.

The Stern Review. You will be aware that green book procedures were already in place in 2006, when Nicholas Stern issued his Stern Review, an (apparent) attempt to provide a cost versus benefits analysis for policy action or inaction on reducing CO₂ emissions. You may also be aware that, as documented in Ben Pile’s report, Stern now chairs two institutes at the London School of Economics, both active in climate policymaking, and funded by Jeremy Grantham, another of the green alarmist billionaires identified in the report.

The social cost of carbon. You may be aware that, at the time, the green book procedures required cost-benefit analysis of policies affecting CO₂ emissions to use the “social cost of carbon” (SCC) approach. In the words of the government’s historical web page on valuing CO₂ emissions [[4]]: “The SCC matters because it signals what society should, in theory, be willing to pay now to avoid the future damage caused by incremental carbon emissions.” And in my view, this is the right measure to use in assigning monetary value to these emissions.

Stern did, indeed, use an SCC approach in this review. But you may not be aware that, of the three tools (integrated assessment models, IAMs) Stern had available to him, he chose the one which gave by far the most pessimistic estimate of the social cost of CO₂ emissions. You may also not be aware that Stern made other assumptions such as a low discount rate, that resulted in a grossly exaggerated estimate of the cost of not taking any policy action.

The climate change bill. The 2008 UK climate change bill did make a token attempt at a cost-benefit analysis. The numbers were, so I understand, based on the Stern review. But not only were these numbers dubious for the reasons outlined above, but they had a huge range of uncertainty too. I myself actually downloaded and read the 200 or so pages of supporting data and calculations. If I recall right, there was a factor of 7 uncertainty in the costs, and a factor of 12 uncertainty in the “benefits,” of taking action to reduce CO₂ emissions in order to mitigate some putative climate change.

On 14^th July 2008, I wrote a 9-page letter to you, Mr Hunt, as my MP, giving you a synopsis of the facts on the matter, and inviting you to inform yourself fully; and then, when you understood the facts, to vote against the bill. Yet you failed even to acknowledge my letter, let alone to respond to it! And, you, along with 400+ other MPs, voted for the bill.

The shadow price of carbon. Between 2007 and 2009, steps were taken to move away from the social cost approach. I will quote again from the valuations page I referenced above. “Carbon valuation for policy appraisal no longer uses the social cost of carbon.” And: “In December 2007, the approach to carbon valuation adopted the use of the shadow price of carbon (SPC) as the basis for incorporating carbon emissions in cost-benefit analysis and impact assessments. However, it takes more account of uncertainty, and is based on a stabilisation trajectory.”

This page [[5]] links to the documentation on the change to using the shadow price of carbon. It also links to reviews on that change by a number of economists. Some of these are dated 2007, but others are dated 2009, indicating that they refer to a further change in that year.

Paul Ekins’ 2007 review [[6]] said: “The issue is how to arrive at such a price in a way that is both defensible and supports the Government’s climate change policy.” Ekins goes on to outline a plan “to seek to estimate the MAC [marginal abasement costs] required to reduce carbon emissions to achieve the desired UK contribution to a global goal of stabilising carbon concentrations in the atmosphere at a level thought to avoid unacceptably dangerous climate change.” So, the climate change policy required a pricing mechanism that wasn’t defensible? That’s a bit of a revelation. As is the admission that some “global goal” was seen as more important than the interests of the people of the supposedly democratic UK.

The 2009 review by Paul Watkiss [[7]] says: “We now have defined policy targets for the short- and long-term, which were not set on the basis of the social cost of carbon (SCC), and thus there is a high risk of under- or over-delivery of these targets if Government continues to use a SCC value.” I read this as an admission that policy targets had been set without considering cost-effectiveness from the point of view of the people who would pay the costs. And here we are, 14 years later, and we still don’t have a proper cost-benefit analysis on “net zero.”

As an aside, Paul Watkiss had been the chair of the group that in 2003 produced a feasibility study for what in 2008 became the original London Low Emissions Zone (LEZ).

Today, there seems to be no longer a link from [[4]] to the detail on the 2009 change. However, the original page is still available, here: [[8]]. The punch-line is as follows: “The old approach based on estimates of the social cost of carbon should be replaced with a target-consistent approach, based on estimates of the abatement costs that will need to be incurred to meet specific emissions reduction targets. The change will have the effect of helping to ensure that the policies the government develops are consistent with the emissions reductions targets that the UK has adopted through carbon budgets, and also at an EU and UN level.”

If I read that right, it means that the UK government had abandoned any attempt or pretence at trying to work out how big the CO₂ problem really was. Cynically paraphrased, their argument seems to have been: “We know we can’t do a credible cost-benefit analysis that justifies any political action on this. But we’re already committed to political action. So, we’ll make up numbers to match the commitments, and hope that no-one notices.”

On that page, there is also a link to a review by Paul Johnson [[9]]. The following comment is most revealing: “The problem is, of course, that the natural response of the economist to some of the arguments put forward here – that the SCC may be inconsistent with targets and international agreements – is that this just reveals the incoherence of the targets and agreements. I am not in that camp, but the paper needs more explicitly to rebut that view.” And, a little further down: “given a target, the consistent approach is to value carbon in such a way as to ensure we hit the target.” Again, policy cart before cost-benefit horse, no?

The 2019 CCC report and “cost-benefit analysis.” On to the run-up to the Commons declaring a “climate emergency” on 1^st May, 2019, without even taking a vote. For this occasion, the CCC (Climate Change Committee) had produced a report “Net Zero: The UK’s contribution to stopping global warming” [[10]]. All I could glean from this report is that they reckoned the cost of “net zero” measures might be 1-2% of UK GDP in 2050. But as we know, government projects always cost more and take longer.

More interesting than what the report says, are the mugshots and bios of eight CCC members at the beginning. One of the eight is an economist called Paul Johnson.

Somebody high up must have decided that going ahead with “net zero,” without having published any proper cost-benefit analysis at all, was going to be a little risky. So, this report was produced: [[11]]. It purported to be a cost-benefit analysis for “net zero” CO₂ emission policies. You can note that the chairman of the group that produced this report, Paul Ekins, was the same economist who drove the 2009 decision to move away from the use of the social cost of carbon. You can see in action the MAC approach which replaced it, and you can marvel at how obscure and counter-intuitive it seems. You can also marvel at the lack of monetary numbers in the report for the estimated costs of a given level of “climate change!”

Shadow price versus social cost. In a 2022 report by economics consultancy Cebr for Fair Fuel UK, accessible via [[12]], it was revealed that the number the UK government used to calculate the benefits of reducing CO₂ emissions by a tonne (£255.40) – based on the shadow price of carbon – was more than five times the sterling equivalent of the US government’s published value of the “social cost of carbon” per tonne (£48.54). The replacement of social cost by shadow price made a very big difference to any costs or benefits calculated using it!

Costs and feasibility of net zero. All this does not take into account the steeply rising costs of the “renewable” energy, which net zero policies mandate. We have been repeatedly told by the media that renewable energy is cheap. But that has never been completely true, and is becoming less so by the day. Offshore wind “maximum strike” prices have recently gone up by 66%: [[13]]. The corresponding prices for tidal, geothermal and solar power have also gone up significantly. It is hard to imagine that these rises will not be passed on, and sooner rather than later, to hard-hit consumers.

And that doesn’t take into account the huge re-configurations of the electricity grid, that will be needed to support these new renewables. Nor does it cover the need to provide conventional back-up energy, for the times when the wind doesn’t blow, or the sun doesn’t shine; or both, as in a cold, windless anticyclone in February. Nor does it cover such aspects as global supply problems, for example of lithium for EV batteries; of likely non-delivery of technologies required for net zero, such as cost-effective hydrogen production; or of the level of safety of these new technologies, relative to conventional ones.

It looks very much to me as if “net zero” and related projects have not been properly planned, or their consequences thought through. I sense rising now a tide of very real concern, over the question: Can “net zero” actually be achieved, in any timescale? And that is on top of the question: Even if it was feasible, would it be worth doing? (My answer to that is a strong No.)

Green Book update of 2020. In 2020, there was an update to the Green Book, described here: [[14]]. It says at the outset: “As ultimate decision makers, ministers are not bound by recommendations arising from green book appraisals.” That seems rather concerning to me. Why bother to do them, then?

Of its history, it says: “In March 2020, the Government announced a review of the approach, to improve how the Green Book supports strategic priorities such as its ‘levelling up’ agenda and the transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions.” Later, it says: “The 2020 review of the Green Book concluded that it failed to support the Government’s objectives in areas such as ‘levelling up’ the regions and reaching net zero. The review said this was because the process relied too heavily on cost-benefit analysis, also known as the benefit-cost ratio (BCR).” And there was “insufficient weight given to whether the proposed project addressed strategic policy priorities.” Further, under the new Green Book, “a project with a low BCR could go ahead if it were the best option to achieve a particular objective.”

This seems to imply that policies that politicians deem to be “strategic,” including “net zero,” are to be exempt from cost-benefit analysis! No matter how damaging those policies will be to the people the government is supposed to be serving. Let that sink in.

And the timing of this update was very, very interesting. In mid-February 2020, chancellor Sajid Javid resigned, refusing to bow to pressure from prime minister Boris Johnson to change his advisors. Rishi Sunak – now prime minister! – took over as chancellor. It is probably no coincidence that the review of the Green Book began in March.

“Clean Air, Dirty Money, Filthy Politics.” To justify the main conclusions of his report, Ben Pile cites the following. Large grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to, among others, the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO), Imperial College London, at the centre of controversy over both COVID and ULEZ, and the BBC and other media that take the climate activist side. Funding of climate change campaigns by billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Christopher Hohn. Involvement of C40 Cities and UK 100 [[15]], “a network of local leaders who have pledged to lead a rapid transition to Net Zero with Clean Air in their communities ahead of the government’s legal target,” in both net zero and air quality campaigns. And funding of UK university departments active in the climate change and air pollution arenas, not only by the Gates foundation, but also by Jeremy Grantham.

I can thoroughly recommend a read of this most eye-opening report. But for those without sufficient time to fully digest the original, I have made my own summary, here: [[16]].

The Conservative Environment Network. One series of most interesting grants from Christopher Hohn, via the “Clean Air Fund,” which have totalled $160k over three years, is to the Conservative Environment Network (CEN). This organization includes many MPs [[17]]: indeed, half or perhaps even more of current Tory MPs, including yourself, Mr Hunt. Other names on the list include:

· George Eustice, a former secretary of state for the environment.

· George Freeman, current under-secretary of state for science, research and innovation. And custodian of the “Strategic Priorities Fund,” which funds the government’s “Strategic Priorities Fund Clean Air Programme.”

· Chris Grayling, a former secretary of state for transport.

· Matt Hancock.

· Mark Harper, current minister of state for transport. Who claimed that he “did not have the power” to stop the recent ULEZ expansion.

· Robert Jenrick, who was involved in Michael Gove’s meeting with Extinction Rebellion in April 2019.

· Kwasi Kwarteng, former chancellor.

· Alok Sharma, chair of the CoP26 meeting in Glasgow, and keeper of two diesel SUVs at the time.

It is hard to avoid the thought that some of these at least may have been influenced, in ways not in the best interests of those they are supposed to serve, by activist ideas such as Hohn’s.

The case against a climate crisis. For Andrea Jenkyns’ benefit, I would like to close by giving a link to the following article, which I wrote earlier in the year, and which was re-published at wattsupwiththat.com, “the world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change.” It is here: [[18]]. (Mr Hunt, I sent you this article back in April.) I will quote from my conclusions: “Whatever alarmists may say, I for one don’t see any evidence for a ‘climate crisis.’ Still less is there any hard evidence that emissions of CO₂ from human civilization are causing any climate problems at all. Nor is it at all certain that any amount of reduction in CO₂ emissions would achieve any improvement in the climate.”

In a nutshell, when you disregard the hype and look only at hard evidence, and when you require a high standard of proof – as you would, for example, if on the jury at a criminal trial – then there is no case for any action at all to limit CO₂ emissions, or to implement any of the other associated policies.

To conclude. I hope that what I have had to say on this occasion may have given you some pause, and may set you thinking about the conduct, over these matters, of the UK government towards the people it is supposed to serve. I do not think that the sorry tale I have related – with its supporting links, many of which come from the government’s own web pages – gives any reason to be complacent about the situation. You will no doubt be aware that many people, even very many people, have become extremely unhappy about the way that, in many policy areas, all the main political parties have essentially the same policies, all of which are harmful to the people. That is not a situation that can long be tenable in a democracy. Something has got to slip.

If the case for “net zero” policies is fatally flawed, as I and many other “ordinary” people strongly believe it is, then government should be taking extremely prompt action to reverse these policies. For a large group of MPs to pledge to get a proper, objective, unbiased cost-benefit analysis done and published before any further policy action is taken on any of these fronts, would be an encouraging start. If this does not happen, that would increasingly call into question whether today’s politicians have any interest in democracy, or in the people they are supposed to serve.

Yours sincerely,

Neil Lock

[[1]] https://www.c40.org/

[[2]] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUz4wHKviZ0

[[3]] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-green-book-appraisal-and-evaluation-in-central-governent/the-green-book-2020

[[4]] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/carbon-valuation--2

[[5]] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/shadow-price-of-carbon-economic-appraisal-in-the-uk

[[6]] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/243828/paul-ekins.pdf

[[7]] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/243823/1_20090714193626_e____pwatkiss__1_.pdf

[[8]] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carbon-valuation-in-uk-policy-appraisal-a-revised-approach

[[9]] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c19e640f0b645ba3c6b31/1_20090714193549_e____pauljohnson.pdf

[[10]] https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Net-Zero-The-UKs-contribution-to-stopping-global-warming.pdf