The Chinese puzzles of chairman Tim Yeo

Christopher Booker,Telegraph
" Yeo cited as his main reason for supporting this cause that it would help British businesses to open up more trade links with China. But it was then pointed out that a company of which he is chairman, TMO Renewables (which last year paid him £60,000, at up to £1,000 an hour), has just signed a memorandum of understanding with the largest farming corporation in China to supply it with feedstocks for biofuels. TMO’s latest annual report states that doing business with China has become a “key focus” of its activities.
What everyone missed, however, was that the following day Yeo’s committee published a major report, “Low carbon links with China”, urging that “assisting China in low-carbon development should be at the heart of Government plans to tackle climate change and secure high-value business opportunities for UK firms”. The report was issued in the name of the committee, but most of the long press release that accompanied it consisted of three separate statements calling on ministers to promote those business opportunities, each prominently headed with the name of Mr Yeo." ------------------------------- How Blair led us into this light bulb fiasco
" The EU’s attempt to force us to switch from the bulbs most of us prefer to the supposed “low energy” ones has been a shambles from start to finish. It began with a package of planet-saving green measures agreed by the European Council in March 2007. One after another – from the craze for biofuels to those absurd renewable-energy targets – these have proceeded to fall apart.
It was a supreme example of gesture politics, spun from the inflated egos of politicians with no idea what they were doing – none more obviously so than Tony Blair, who signed us up to producing 15 per cent of our energy from renewables by 2020. His chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, later admitted he had been “horrified” by what this let us in for.
Blair hadn’t realised that half our total energy budget comes from sources such as oil and gas which cannot be replaced by renewables. Thus he committed us to the quite impossible goal of generating 32 per cent of our electricity from renewables. Hence our Government’s utterly crazy plan to cover our countryside and sea with 32,000 wind turbines.
Next time you wonder how you are meant to dispose safely of a broken low-energy bulb as it spills toxic mercury into your carpet, remember Mr Blair’s part in one of the great political follies of the age. "