All the time we have a global system of national accounting for carbon dioxide production the UK will come out well from the numbers and China and India will come out badly. UK policy has driven a lot of  heavy energy using industry out of our country to force us to rely on more imports. The imports from China mean more CO 2 produced in China and less in the UK. The UK has stopped most of its coal based electricity production and come to rely more on imported electricity.  Given this is the approved system why don’t the green campaigners rejoice at the UK’s success in driving down its CO 2 output?

According to global figures China accounts for 30% of manmade CO 2 in the world and the UK under 1%. China’s increase  in CO 2 output in a typical year exceeds total UK output for that year. These numbers do tell us a truth about CO 2 and should encourage the campaigners to pressurise China to do far more than she is doing. They could turn their attention to the Chinese Embassies if they do not fancy trying  a protest in China itself. China and India do rely on coal much more than the advanced countries to generate their power. They are opening new coal power stations and mines.

One of the reasons many people who accept the climate change theory do not do more in their own lives to buy green products is their sense of futility given the way CO 2 worldwide continues to expand whatever action the UK government and consumers take. Despite all the COPs, law changes in advanced countries and the resolutions in world bodies world CO 2 output continues to expand as the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement draws near. So why do Green campaigners attack our own country instead of concentrating on the sources of so much CO 2 growth?

We live under the tyranny of the Bank of England and OBR. Politicians have given powers away to these so called independent bodies, only to discover they are unable to make accurate forecasts whilst recommending policies which lurch us from high inflation to no growth. Many of the electorate take the more traditional view that Ministers are elected to sift the advice and make good decisions. If inflation is too high or growth is too low voters blame the government. As we approach the next election voters face the problem that the main Opposition party thinks the problems of inflation and growth require more powers to be surrendered to the very bodies that have caused much of the bad outcomes so far. Why take more of the same medicine when it has proved to be harmful so far?

Over my time as an MP to date  the record of the Bank of England has been poor for much of that period. The Bank along with the Treasury, the CBI and the Labour party nagged the Conservative government of the 1980s into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. All the time I was Margaret Thatcher’s economic adviser we stayed out of this system, which was obviously going to be destabilising and damaging as I set out in a booklet before the event. When they had their way it gave us first a rapid inflation as the Bank created money to try to keep the exchange rate down to the limits of the scheme, and then caused a deep recession when they had to arrest the inflation with an intense money squeeze to try to save the pound. That wrote off the period 1988- 94 and ended the Conservative government.

In the period 2005-8 the Bank allowed a massive expansion of credit as the Treasury went for an increase of spending and borrowing at the same time. The Conservative Opposition warned the government that this was dangerous and inflationary. So it proved. Then the Bank did the opposite and squeezed money and credit too hard, threatening the solvency of the banks. I warned against such an extreme lurch, but they were determined. Only when some of  the largest banks in  the land were teetering on the edge of collapse did they relent. They had to undertake a very expensive bail out of leading banks brought on by their own folly. As Gordon Brown was an important influence on the thinking behind decisions he ultimately had to take it was fitting Labour were thrown out of office for the big crash of 2008.

In the response to the covid lockdowns the Bank understandably made a  large amount of money available to prop bond markets and offset some of the damaging economic consequences of widespread closures. Unfortunately the Bank continued with this policy throughout 2021, recovery year, in a way that was bound to be inflationary. So it proved. Now they are trying to overcorrect by taking large losses on bonds they paid too much for and reducing  the money supply.

What a pity the experts of the Bank have not yet learned from these dreadful boom/bust swings that creating too much money or allowing too much credit is inflationary, and allowing too little brings on a  recession. This is a clear case where expertise needs to be challenged, and experts with better forecasting records should be listened to more.

Many people who accept the science of climate change do not buy electric cars and heat  pumps because they do not see how that lowers CO 2. The establishment and the main parties all hold the same strange idea that forcing more people to buy these two products will in some way cut world CO 2. It is difficult to see how this would happen given current limits on renewable power.

If I bought a new electric car today and plugged it in to charge it the grid would need to call up more gas fuelled electricity to handle the needs of my recharger. We are usually using all the renewable power we can produce. If I spent a lot of money on a heat pump that too would require grid power to fuel it. How does it make sense to burn the gas in a distant power station and lose some of the energy in transmission when I could burn the gas directly in my home boiler and capture more of that energy as usable heat?

For the establishment view to  work we need much more renewable power to power the grid, with reliable ways of storing green electricity for days and times when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. We are someway off that situation. Before demanding we switch cars and heating systems government and the energy industry need to decide how to make storing renewable power economic. There would then be a long period of gaining permissions and implementing the work necessary to put in extra renewable capacity, extra grid capacity, and the approved ways of storing. These might be the production of green hydrogen with all the additional changes that would then require, or more large battery installations, or more pump storage systems. None of this is easy to do, quick to complete or cheap.

There also needs to be whole lifetime accounting. Ripping out a gas boiler and putting in a heat  pump uses large amounts of energy to make or scrap or install or remove the products. Much of the work  today is undertaken by suppliers using fossil fuels . This CO 2 needs to be accounted for. Early retirement of gas boilers or petrol cars may add to world CO 2 from the CO 2 involved in their replacement. It has been shown you would need to do a high mileage for a number of years in an electric car, recharging it from renewable sources, to cut overall CO 2 compared to running your older petrol car for longer.

The Horizon scandal is a good extreme case of what can go wrong when too many Ministers and MPs accept official advice and believe experts, only to discover later that the official advice and expertise is badly wrong and doing grave harm.

I am all in favour of expertise. If I was ill I would seek advice from a doctor as they know so much more than I about diseases and health problems. I would also be aware of the need to ask what the side effects of treatment might be and  what the record of success has been if treatment was proposed as ultimately I would have to make the decision about what to do.

Valuing experts does not mean that experts are always right. Indeed, in the areas I know best where I have some expertise of my own I am well aware of the divergence of opinions amongst the experts. This makes a Minister’s job both very interesting and very challenging. Advisers advise and Ministers decide. Sometimes a Minister needs to ask for a second opinion or a different expert view. Good Ministers are generalists but they have a sense of when the expertise is well based and when it could let them down. Good Ministers also wish to achieve good results for the public they serve. That too can demand changing experts to get a better answer.

I and a few other MPs, impressed by the work of  James Arbuthnot, asked questions about Horizon from early days of the problems emerging. We all knew good honest local PO managers and could not believe some of them were accused of fraud and false accounting. As we realised the numbers involved I asked how senior managers of the Post Office and senior officials in the sponsor department could think there was suddenly a big outbreak of fraud around the same time as a new accounting system was introduced. It was also strange that no evidence came forward of these alleged fraudsters suddenly having bloated bank accounts or stuffed wallets of their own, going on a  spending spree from the profits of crime.

It was frustrating that so many senior officials and Ministers stuck to the Post Office line.  In future blogs I will look at other very worrying examples of where establishment thinking based on errant expertise is doing damage. As readers will know, I have been challenging establishment thinking over inflation, growth, reductions of CO 2, energy policy and migration amongst others. When people say they want change in the way we are governed, they are often seeking change in the controlling theories and policy prescriptions. When all the main parties accept the same expertise which turns out to be wrong democracy is damaged.

Electric cars are not selling well to individual buyers. Few people want to buy a heat pump. Green campaigners insist these products are essential to save the planet. They plan further taxes subsidies, regulations and bans to force people to buy things they do not want or cannot afford. To succeed the green revolution needs to be a popular revolution with people wanting its products.

There are various strands to scepticism which Green campaigners need to take seriously. Shouting back at people that they are climate deniers is no way to win them over and is usually wrong. Let us first look at the science.

I know of no one who denies carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas or who denies manmade carbon dioxide is increasing. Most accept climate  has changed a lot in the past and is likely to carry on changing. The issues many have with the “settled science” include

1. Green scientists do need to explain to the wider audience what caused the warm periods and ice ages before mankind appeared. How will these  same forces which must still be around affect our temperatures going  forward?

2. In historical times before industrialisation and the adoption of coal,oil and gas as prime energy sources  by people what caused global warming and cooling? Could these forces still be around?

3. How does variation in solar intensity, solar flares and other changes in our main light and energy source affect past earth temperatures.? What are the forecasts for sun activity going forward? Will this make us warmer or colder?

4. Why do wind and current  patterns shift? What is the forecast for these going forward, as they can have an important impact on weather in different countries and continents.

5. What is the role of water vapour and what changes are likely in its pattern in future? Water vapour is another very common greenhouse gas.

Future temperature levels will be the result of the interplay of the past natural forces that produced climate change with the manmade additions to  greenhouse gases. To persuade more people to join green campaigns they will need persuasion that manmade CO 2 will be the deciding variable in future temperatures. This is presumably based on the thesis that past natural forces like solar activity and seismic activity will not be dominant forces or that their net impact will be neutral in ways that it was not in previous eras.

I reproduce today the views of an EV car owner sent to me recently. He agreed I could  share this with you. As it reveals this is someone who bought into the green  idea and wanted the EV to work for him. Experience was very disappointing. I have shortened and anonymised it:

“Some 5 months ago I was in a position to change my Petrol vehicle (Peugeot 3008) for an electric one. Unfortunately the 3008 has only just been released as a Hybrid and the full EV is not due until later next year (2024). As a result of this I was obliged to go to the E2008 which is a smaller vehicle. Despite this the E2008 was considerably more expensive than the petrol 3008.

The cost of a home charger was nearly £1000 extra to have installed. Even the domestic “granny” charger was another £250 to charge at home until a home charger could be installed.

I try to have “green thoughts” about the environment where possible and use Solar Panels and have recently installed a Combi Boiler.

However after using the Electric car for 5 months I have reverted back to a petrol driven model due to the following reasons.

My wife and I had range anxiety. Most manufacturers quote a range of in excess 200 miles. In practice the best I could get was about 150 miles in fair weather. With the recent cold weather I found that range could drop down to as little as 110 miles.

We had to make a number of trips to towns  about 120 miles away  and required a charge on the way home. Of the 5 trips we made we found that none of the high speed type were working, after trying 5 different chargers we finally found a charger which was at a hotel. When we arrived at the hotel the charger was in use and the guy had only just started charging so we knew it would be about an hours wait. Also there is no queueing spaces so we had to double park until the space became free.

On our most recent trip away I wanted to use one of the regular chargers only to find there were already 3 cars waiting to use the one charger.  This would have meant waiting up to 3 hours before I could connect.

I also had a friend visit from Slovakia and we decided to take her out shopping by car. We knew that it would be risky trying to complete the journey without recharging on the way home. We tried 5 different chargers and found that they were not working.

We decided that the only way was to hope for the best and try to get home without the charge and made it home with just 11 miles spare and no reserve having turned off the heater on the way home to save energy.

On these occasions we were in contact with the Network Operators who tried to be helpful but could only suggest using low power chargers at supermarkets which could mean a stay of 7 hours, plus the devices have a maximum stay time of 2 to 3 hours without a penalty of £100-150 for an overstay.

(He gave up on the EV )

Unfortunately I lost about 30% in the trade in of my electric vehicle after just 5 months and had to pay a premium of about 20% in buying a 2 year old petrol model.

Reply: This explains why EVs are a hard sell to non fleet buyers. The motor industry has here lost a customer who bought into the idea but was thwarted by the costs of the product and the difficulties of recharging when away from home.