Britain’s new government abolished its Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) Thursday morning, ridding the country of its global warming bureaucracy.
Officials stated that the DECC has been abolished and U.K.’s environmental policy is will be transferred to a new ministry called the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Some former DECC’s functions will be outright abolished, while others will be handed back to the new ministry.
The new agency will be headed by Greg Clark, who has a record of opposing wind power, causing environmentalists to panic. British wind companies, particularly ones that specialize in offshore wind power, were already worried that Brexit places the government subsidies and easy access to financing at risk. The industry is deeply dependent on these subsidies to make projects more economically viable.
The backlash against British wind power occurred when the country’s government was already forced to take emergency measures to keep the lights on and official government analysis suggests the country could have insufficient electricity on a windless or cloudy days to meet demand. Brownouts and blackouts caused by wind and solar power have already impacted the U.K.
As a result, Britain’s ruling Conservative Party has already cut green subsidies to protect consumers and the industry from expensive energy bills, which were roughly 54 percent higher than American energy bills in 2014. Energy taxes cost Britis roughly $6.6 billion every year.
Britain has been slashing green energy subsidies since last July, when government cut funds that exceeded spending caps. Government green energy taxes currently account for seven percent of the average household’s energy bill, according to the UK’s Office of Gas and Electricity Markets. Other British environmental taxes such as tariffs and carbon taxation commitments are expected to rise from $8.5 billion in 2015 to $19.3 billion in 2020, according to DECC reports. The potential end of the DECC means that those taxes may not rise as planned.
Polling indicates that energy prices were so high that 38 percent of British households have cut back essential purchases, like food, to pay their energy bills. Another 59 percent of homes were worried about how they are going to pay energy bills.
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