The Government plans to hide the rise in 'fuel poverty’ by changing its name

Christopher Booker,Telegraph
"The horrendous impact of this tax is one of many aspects of current “climate policies” which seem to have escaped general notice. In 2010 we burned 40 million tons of coal to make electricity. Every ton burnt produces 2.9 tons of CO2 (as each carbon atom combines with two of oxygen). So the tax on the resulting 116 million tons of CO2 will amount next year to around £1.9 billion. The CO2 emitted by producing 175,000 gigawatt hours of electricity from gas will yield a further £1 billion, bringing the total cost to £2.9 billion, or 15 per cent of the wholesale cost of our electricity.

When the Treasury did its sums on how much this would add to our electricity bills, it did so on the basis that we would already be paying £14.20 a ton for “carbon” under the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), so that the additional cost would not be huge. But what they didn’t allow for was that the price of carbon under the ETS has collapsed to just £6.70 a ton. So next year we will be having to pay nearly £10 a ton more than anyone else in Europe.

By 2030, when the UK carbon tax has risen to £70 a ton, this will represent £500 a year for every household in the country. Add in the £100 billion the Government wants to see spent on windmills over the next eight years, and we can see why they would want to change the definition of “fuel poverty”.