The High Cost of Green

The decision by the Conservative government to spend 50% more on so-called "climate aid" is a feel-good policy that does little for the world’s poorest or the planet. It is part of an indefensible international movement towards ever greater chunk of aid going towards climate.

The money – £5.8 billion – is to be diverted from the United Kingdom’s overseas aid budget to its International Climate Fund over the next five years.

Outside the Paris climate conference center, organizers have erected a ‘Wind Tree’ (Arbre a Vent) which produces electricity using the power of the breeze. In doing so, they have summed up exactly what is wrong with the conference.

The tree will only produce 3,500 kWh per year and it costs about €25,000. So, at a production price of about 7 cents per kWh , it will take 89 years to make up just the capital cost. Or put differently, the cost is 300% more expensive than even traditional wind power, which still struggles without subsidies.

World leaders will soon arrive in New York for a climate summit likely to do little more than add to the hysteria drowning out any sober talk on climate policy. Amid warnings that we have days left to act, politicians will jostle to share the spotlight with celebrity activists such as 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who came from Europe by wind-powered boat. Hurricane Dorian looms large over proceedings as a harbinger of doom.