Responding the to seventh Carbon Budget, Andy Mayer, Energy Analyst at the Institute of Economic Affairs said:

“The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is a £7m a year state-funded lobby group (or sock puppet) mandated by Parliament to produce 5-year carbon budgets, the latest of which for 2038-42 was published today.

“The existence of the CCC is rooted in the 2008 Climate Change Act and rests of a fallacy that with the right expert advice the Government can centrally plan the UK economy to achieve emissions goals in the distant future.

“Scenario planning, which is what the carbon budgets are, cannot do this.

“The technology required to decarbonise the global economy is unpredictable, the cost unknown, and the trade-offs easily manipulated or ignored to overstate the case for rapid action.

“The headline topic of mass uptake of heat pumps is a good example of this. The Government has been trying this for years, and the public keep saying no.

“This is because gas boilers work, electricity is 3-5 times more expensive than gas and will become more so as the Government bets the farm on unreliable renewables backed up by idling gas plants and massive grid investment.

“The CCC then want the Government to rig prices by putting the cost of electricity on gas bills or general taxation. Hiding the costs rather than making energy more affordable.

“This is not a new idea, but it is putting the net zero cart before the affordable energy security horse.

“Decarbonisation of heat occurs less expensively if we wait for the technology to mature in response to market signals, rather than rigging the market.

“Which speaks to the frequent criticism of the CCC that they are a mouthpiece for vested interests, in this case heat pump lobbyists, rather than reliable or neutral authority on climate policy.

“It would be better if the CCC were privatised and their special status in legislation removed or reduced to measurement of climate metrics and policy impacts like carbon prices in the national statistics.”