PrintMay 8, 2010
Britain's Conservatives, Nick Clegg and Climate Change
Could a Perfect Storm be brewing on climate change policy in Great Britain?
Consider the deal that Britain's Tory Leader David Cameron is trying to cook up with Nick Clegg, who heads the left-of-center Liberal Democrats. Thursday's British elections resulted in a hung parliament, meaning that no party gained a majority of seats in Parliament's lower chamber. Cameron is trying to cobble together a deal with Clegg to gain a majority.
In remarks made yesterday by Cameron, the Tory leader laid out areas of common interest between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. One was climate change. Cameron seems to share in the delusion that pernicious carbon emissions are making the British Isles and Planet Earth unlivable. Checkout the Conservative Party's position on climate change in its manifesto.
Should Cameron succeed in wooing Clegg into a partnership, the question becomes: "How much further left could the Liberal Democrats drag the Conservatives on carbon emissions policy?" Judging from the Conservatives' current stance on carbon emissions, Clegg and company may not have to do too much dragging to get legislation that enacts further economy-crippling climate rules and regs on Britain.
Given that Great Britain is already swaying under the strain of debt and deficits, the last thing the Brits need are more legislation that hampers economic growth. But more red tape, mandates, higher fees and taxes don't retard economic growth, right? At least, that's the fantasy the left is always peddling -- and that's pulling Europe down a sinkhole.
As Nile Gardiner makes clear at National Review Online, a deal between Britain's Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would be a disaster -- for the Conservative Party and Great Britain. That's no less true in the area of climate change.
For those not quite convinced that we live in a time of folly, consider that David Cameron is looking left to build a majority; this while Greece collapses under the weight of welfare statism, and that the Greek collapse may trigger the same throughout Europe. Bigger government-ism surely isn't the answer to the problem of big government-ism. Carbon emissions nonsense is, as they say, just adding fuel to the fire that's consuming Europe.
