Energy special: The green jobs myth

Tim Yeo MP called his proposal for yet another draconian target to decarbonise Britain’s power sector the ‘green jobs amendment’. It was defeated last week by 290 votes to 267. One sweeping new regulation was apparently enough for the day as the Commons settled for casually renationalising the energy sector by passing the government’s bill.

The amendment’s defeat is a setback for environmentalists, who had campaigned for it aggressively, but not for Britain’s two and a half million unemployed. ‘Green jobs’ are an utter farce. More expensive sources of energy will destroy more employment than they create.

That is not to say that no one has a green job. Tim Yeo has several and in the latest parliamentary scandal he appeared to be pitching aggressively for another one. In the past year he has earned tens of thousands of pounds working for green energy firms. And there are plenty of others working hard to turn renewable energy subsidies into more renewable energy subsidies.

Beyond the lucrative jobs for green lobbyists, it is true that there is more legitimate work making and installing the solar panels and wind turbines that earn those subsidies. Britain needs 374 million megawatt hours of electricity each year and it takes more capital and more labour to generate a megawatt hour of renewable energy than it does to generate a megawatt hour of conventional energy.

And what must be remembered is the jobs not created because people are spending their money on paying higher bills rather than other things; not created because tens of billions of pounds are invested in the energy sector rather than other businesses; and not created because industrial energy costs are too high here in Britain relative to other potential locations.