The Hits Just Keep On Coming

The Daily Mail is reporting that Britain's carbon trading scheme, enacted just a few years ago, has lined the pockets of power generation companies there to the tune of about £2 billion. And hasn't cut emissions.

Energy companies have made up to £2billion profit at the expense of customers under the EU’s controversial carbon trading scheme, the Government has conceded.

The scheme – introduced two and a half years ago – was supposed to encourage dirty power stations to switch to cleaner, low carbon, energy.

But, in practice, the first phase of the scheme has allowed some of the dirtiest polluters to generate huge profits by ramping up customer bills, without lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Some industry experts believe the carbon trading ‘windfall’ will soar to around £1.5billion a year when the second phase begins next year.

Consumer and environmental groups yesterday said the scheme had lined the pockets of electricity generators such as PowerGen and Scottish Power without reducing emissions.

European carbon trading is a key part of the Government’s drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under the scheme, major manufacturers and electricity producers are handed permits that allow them to produce a fixed amount of carbon dioxide each year.

Companies that reduce their pollution ration can sell unused permits on the open market, while companies that exceed their carbon target must buy additional permits.

It was assumed that companies would be forced to buy the permits, giving them a real financial incentive to reduce pollution. But, after lobbying from industry, the EU handed out the permits for free.

Because power firms were now keen to reduce pollution by cutting their total electricity output, the knock-on effect was to increase the price of electricity, generating massive windfall profits.

In addition, they were able to sell any unused permits for a profit on the open market.

Meet the new boss, makes the old boss look like a piker. Seriously, this is just one more example of the raging fraud that is being pushed by true believers. (There are multiple links to other stories here at this post.) As more and more of this is revealed, it is seriously time to take a hard look at where the money is going. Because someone is getting very rich off this scam. Follow the money; the old rule applies.