Carbon trading is a scam that enriches big business and puts Brits on the dole
Posted on 22. Dec, 2009 by Martin Wingfield in Constituency News
CARBON-trading is where companies buy and sell permits to adjust their pollution allowance.
The Climate Change lobby claims the scheme cuts carbon emissions and will save the planet. The reality is somewhat different.
Carbon trading is just a money-making scam that enriches big business and the banks at the taxpayers’ expense.
The European Union introduced the carbon trading scheme in 2005 providing companies with an allocation of carbon permits based on their past emissions record. Oil companies, as major polluters, were given the lion’s share of the permits while public services were left at the bottom of the pile. This meant that when companies like Shell and BP trimmed their emissions, they could cash in on selling their permits to the public sector such as NHS hospitals.
In that first year of carbon-trading, Shell made a profit of £50 million and BP a profit of £43 billion, while Britain’s hospitals made a loss of nearly £6 million.
When big business and the banks make money, it’s the man-in-the-street who has to foot the bill, whether through increased tax payments or the loss of their jobs . . .
and that’s exactly what has happened on Teeside.
In 2007, Indian steel giant Tata bought-out Corus, the last remnants of Britain’s once all-conquering steel industry, for £6 billion. But now, less than three years on, because of the huge profits available from carbon-trading, Tata has pulled the plug on its plant in Redcar and move production to India.
1,700 British steel workers have lost their livelihoods and it’s nothing to do with the falling global demand in steel.
Tata are ditching Britain because it can pocket £1.2 billion by selling the carbon permits attached to the Teeside plant, and moving to India where it does not have to buy any permits.
“We are seeing the de-industrialisation of Britain,” says Nick Griffin. “The climate change charade is encouraging private and foreign owned industry to move out of Britain and cash-in their carbon-trading permits as they say goodbye.
“This is going to have a devastating effect on jobs and the ability of Britain to sustain any heavy industry.
“1,700 skilled workers in the North East can no longer put to good use the expertise that they have acquired during a lifetime of productive work. These are skills that will be lost to the nation for ever unless drastic steps are taken to protect British industry from the global con-men.”
While filling the coffers of big business and the bank, carbon-trading hurts ordinary people because green taxes push up energy costs and the price of staple foods such as bread, fresh vegetables and meat.
In the years to come the huge hike from green taxes will price the annual foreign family holiday out of sight, while Britain’s rural communities will be left isolated as bus and train services are slashed in a vain effort to reduce the country’s carbon footprint.
