Britain's bill for climate aid rises to £4.5 billion

Telegraph
" Growing numbers of Tory backbenchers are now calling for the Government to withdraw from expensive climate change and carbon emission commitments. Japan’s decision to sharply reduce its carbon emission goals and Australia’s scrapping of a tax on high carbon emitters has increased the pressure. Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former Conservative chancellor and a climate change sceptic, criticised the EU for using its wider budget to provide climate aid. He said: “This is a complete waste of taxpayers’ money. It will achieve no useful purpose at a time when people are already hard pressed.” Douglas Carswell, Tory MP for Clacton, said the decision was unjustifiable. He said: “We’re spending money that we don’t have to solve a problem that doesn’t exist at the behest of people we didn’t elect. “The problem is because the decision makers in the EU are not properly accountable. They are making decisions that not only affect how billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money will be spent, but will directly impact the heating costs people in my constituency will face over winter.” He added: “The rethinks that have happened in Japan and Australia and elsewhere desperately need to happen here as well.” Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative MP for North East Somerset, said: “We shouldn’t be wasting money in this way. “Every penny of money that comes from the British government is paid for by taxpayers and we are supposed to be in an age of austerity. "We are cutting back on things like children’s services but then you are spending £4.5 billion on climate change aid which won’t make a blind bit of good anyway.”