Our macroeconomic reliance on debt, and the focus on aggregate demand, is based upon a wide Keynesian consensus.
Less attention is paid to the savings that must provide the funding for investment, the centrality of assets and importance of the core infrastructure systems – natural and conventional. Microeconomic principles, such as the polluter pays and public money for public goods, provide guides for developing sustainable government policies.
-
Podcast 73: Why electricity prices are so high and why renewables are not cheap
Why when solar and wind are supposed to be nine times cheaper than gas are electricity prices in the UK amongst the highest in the world? Why when the UK is supposed to be a fast track to this promised cheap net zero electricity by 2030 are large industrial users struggling? Why is Grangemouth in… Read more…
-
The price of energy and the system costs of renewables
Why is the price of electricity so high? It’s a puzzle, because successive politicians (Blair, Cameron, May, Johnson and now Starmer and Miliband) and lots of lobbyists have told us we should have expected quite the opposite: cheap energy, to be achieved by getting out of fossil fuels. First exit coal, then bear down on… Read more…
-
Podcast 72: The changing net zero zeitgeist
In the mid-2030s, historians may look back and note that, despite numerous COP meetings and agreements like the Paris Agreement, global carbon emissions continued to rise, with significant contributions from countries like India, China, and Indonesia. The world failed to meet the 1.5°C target, making 2°C and even 3°C more likely. In this podcast, Dieter… Read more…
-
Zonal pricing
Zonal pricing has become the subject of a classic lobbying war, with all the usual games being played. On the one side, we have Octopus, hitting the major newspapers, lobbying journalists, writing op-eds and citing consultancy reports it commissioned to support its case. Claims are made about how much money will be saved, how zonal… Read more…
-
Podcast 71: Fiddling the books on debt
The UK’s national debt now stands at around 100% of GDP, meaning that the country has borrowed the equivalent of an entire year’s economic output. Under current fiscal rules, the government aims to stop borrowing for day-to-day spending by 2030, but borrowing for investment is exempt from these limits. This creates a loophole: by reclassifying… Read more…
-
Can you grow the economy without nature?
It’s not a matter of the left vs. the right – the case for nature needs to be continually made against a complex political backdrop. Speaking to Estelle Bailey, Chief Executive of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) about why the government’s Planning & Infrastructure Bill is a wake-up call to everyone who cares… Read more…
