Start: Jul 26 2012 5:00 pm
End: Jul 26 2012 7:00 pm


Emergency Demo – this Thursday 26th July, 5.00 pm to 7.00 pm

At the Treasury, 1 Horse Guards Road.

A leaked letter (see Financial Times article here - you need to register but its free) reveals that “George Osborne has offered to drop his demands for tougher cuts to onshore wind subsidies if the Liberal Democrats back down over “inflexible” targets for Britain’s shift away from fossil fuels” – in other words if they agree to effectively ignore the targets enshrined in the Climate Act, thereby rendering it effectively dead.

The Commons energy committee has recommended that the forthcoming Energy Bill set a target for largely decarbonising the electricity supply by 2030. The Committee on Climate Change has said that this is effectively the only way that the UK can fulfil its statutory carbon reduction commitments. Osborne however has been pushing for unabated gas and therefore the effective abandonment of meaningful climate targets.

Osborne has been allying himself with the Tory right against wind farms and using this to pressurise the Lib Dems into accepting a climb-down from the projected decarbonisation of electricity by 2030. Ed Davey the Lib-Dem Energy Secretary has already accepted a 10% cut in the subsidies for wind energy but backbench Tories are pushing for 25% cuts to the subsidies for onshore wind.

So Osborne and the Tory right are effectively pushing for a second dash for gas in place of a determined attempt to move to renewable energy – and in the process they are destroying investor confidence in what was a booming sector. Even Tim Yeo – senior Tory and former minister – has accused Osborne of wrecking the government’s green energy plans to placate backbench Tories. See Guardian article here. See further Guardian blog here.

Osborne’s attack on the green policies (already woefully inadequate in the light of the climate science) of the Coalition has been ramping up over several months and has now reached a peak which clearly threatens to annihilate the ground-breaking Climate Act, as a viable means of keeping to (even inadequate) carbon reduction targets.

Now is the time to make a stand! Stop Osborne killing the Climate Act!

We will also hand in a letter to the Lib Dems demanding that they don’t give in to pressure from Osborne and the Tory Right and become complicit in the destruction of the Climate Act.

Join us at the Treasury between 5.00 pm and 7.00 pm!