Source: BBC Radio 4: World at One
URL: N/A
Date: 02/06/2017
Event: Roger Helmer: Paris Agreement "a vast misallocation of resources"
Credit: BBC Radio 4
People:
Martha Kearney: There's been increasing criticism of Donald Trump's move to pull out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said it was deeply regrettable but said this decision will not stop those of us who are committed to protecting our world.
Angela Merkel [translated]: The United States' decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement is extremely regrettable, and I'm putting it mildly. The Agreement is and remains one of the cornerstones of co-operation between the countries of the world. To all those who care about the future of our planet, I have this message: let's continue together on this path we embarked upon, so we will be successful, for our Mother Earth.
Martha Kearney: Last night President Trump called Theresa May to discuss his decision, during which Downing Street says she expressed her disappointment. But Labour criticised Mrs. May's decision not to sign a letter of protest by European leaders over the President's actions. A source within the government has told the BBC that the letter was drawn up before Mrs. May had been able to speak to the President, and that she wanted to hear from the President before deciding on her response. The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said Mrs. May should have been more vocal in her criticism.
Jeremy Corbyn: Given the chance to present a united front from our international partners, she's instead opted for silence and once again subservience to Donald Trump. It's a dereliction of both her duty to this country and our duty to our planet. This is not the type of leadership Britain needs.
Martha Kearney: The SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon called it an appalling abdication of leadership by the Prime Minister. For the LibDems, Tim Farron tweeted "If the special relationship between the PM and Trump exists, it exists for moments like this. We need to make him see sense on climate change." And the Green Party spokeswoman Caroline Russell questioned Theresa May's stance on climate change.
Caroline Russell: Donald Trump needs to be condemned in the strongest possible terms for this reckless and, frankly, economically illiterate decision. We need to have clarity from Mrs. May about what she thinks about climate change. It is really extraordinary that the UK is so isolated that the only person that Mrs. May can get together with is Donald Trump.
Martha Kearney: Well, Roger Helmer is the UKIP energy spokesman and MEP for the East Midlands region. I asked him what he thought about President Trump's decision.
Roger Helmer: I'm delighted. What we've got is a situation where I think there are increasing questions about the theory of man-made global warming - the actual trend of temperature is constantly undershooting the alarmists' projections -
Martha Kearney: Well, just let me pick you up on that, because it is controversial, isn't it - I mean, the rate of increase has doubled over the last 50 years, according to NASA, and a vast, vast majority of scientists do attribute that to man-made climate change.
Roger Helmer: Well, we are all aware that the world has been warming slightly over the last 150 years, and if the world is on a slight warming trend, then you would expect warmer years, but can I make the point that I think is really important, about the Paris climate deal. Even if you accept the whole of the IPCC theory, we're looking at a Paris programme, which, if implemented - and of course it won't be - that would cost hundreds of trillions of dollars by the end of the century, and yet, on calculations based on IPCC principles, is likely to hold down temperature by no more than 0.3 degrees at the end of that period. In other words, it is massive, massive expenditure for an almost trivial result, and it is a vast misallocation of resources -
Martha Kearney: But the counter-argument to that is that this money wouldn't be wasted - a lot of it would be going into the green economy, and so therefore would be stimulating growth.
Roger Helmer: Of course if you invest money in green energy then you create green jobs. But you're actually destroying jobs in the rest of the economy because you're driving up energy prices, and the result of all that is that you are far worse off. What we are doing -
Martha Kearney: But then a lot of businesses in the United States have said that they're very unhappy with Donald Trump's decision - the Tesla chief executive, the head of Disney have both quit their advisory positions in the White House.
Roger Helmer: Well of course, because their money is in this new green hysteria. You know, you've mentioned the head of Tesla, well he's selling electric cars - of course he's going to want support for reducing CO2 emissions. Even if you take Exxon Mobil, for example, they have big investments in gas and they feel that emissions targets will increase the value of their gas investments. So you've got to look at the reason why people do this - we've created structures in which people can make a lot of money out of green policies - so those people making money out of green policies naturally want to continue to do so.
Martha Kearney: So do you think that the UK should follow President Trump's example?
Roger Helmer: Absolutely, and I'm very sorry that Theresa May saw fit to disagree with him. President Trump has actually realised that the Emperor has no clothes and what's more, President Trump has had the courage to say that. And I think he deserves congratulation for that.
Martha Kearney: Roger Helmer, from UKIP. Within the past hour, Theresa May has been explaining her position.
Theresa May: I've made the UK's position on the Paris Agreement very clear. We remain committed to the Paris Agreement - it's an important international agreement on climate change. I made the UK's position clear to President Trump last week at the G7 meeting, as did the other G7 leaders, and I made the UK's position clear to President Trump last night. Canada and Japan have not signed that letter, neither has the UK but we all have the same view, that we remain committed to the Paris Agreement.
Martha Kearney: The former Labour leader Ed Miliband joins us from Doncaster - he was also Climate Change Secretary under Gordon Brown until 2010. Do you accept Theresa May's explanation of her position?
Ed Miliband: No, I don't. And it's so illuminating, isn't it, to listen to Theresa May and Angela Merkel, because you have one leader who speaks strongly about the - how unwise and foolish this decision is, how disappointing it is, how wrong it is, and another leader who even, given 24 hours or so to think about it, fails to come out and properly criticise President Trump. And the reason this matters, Martha, is the signal it sends. The signal it sends about British leadership, and Theresa May is sending a signal that she's weak and feeble and spineless, I'm afraid -
Martha Kearney: Well, those are very strong words, I mean Downing Street -
Ed Miliband: - they are strong words.
Martha Kearney: - said she did express her disappointment at Donald Trump, and sometimes these things are better done, aren't they, privately rather than megaphone diplomacy.
Ed Miliband: Disappointment is when your football team loses a match. It is not when somebody makes a devastating decision like this. Look, America is one of the two largest emitters in the world, along with China. This decision was backed by every country in the world, apart from Syria, which is in the middle of a civil war, and Nicaragua that wanted us to go further. It's so - this - American leadership was so important to this. I - I was part of the failed Copenhagen process in 2009, when actually we didn't have America and China on the same page. It was so important, Paris, and it is so important for the future generations, and if ever there was a moment when Britain needed a strong leader, it was now, and it turns out we've got an incredibly weak one, who is missing in action, and I'm afraid that is what people are increasingly thinking about Theresa May.
Martha Kearney: Well, listening to some of the arguments, there are people who think that the UK should be following the United States' example - we heard from UKIP, they say that by signing up to this agreement, we're destroying jobs in the rest of the economy because it's going to push up energy prices.
Ed Miliband: Well, I mean, they're just on another planet, aren't they. I mean, look - the reality about this is that the vast majority of scientists -
Martha Kearney: Don't green taxes push up energy prices?
Ed Miliband: No, the key point, which Lord Stern's report of a decade ago showed, is that the costs of not acting on climate change are much greater than the costs of acting. In other words, if you don't act, you end up with floods, extreme weather and all kinds of things that are going to be visited on our children and grandchildren, and that's what is overwhelmingly accepted by scientists, by business people - Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs doesn't normally tweet at all - now I'm not a friend of Goldman Sachs on everything, but yet he actually tweeted for the first time yesterday to say how wrong this decision is. And that is the - just let me finish this point - that is the scale of this. Barack Obama, Al Gore, business leaders, scientists, all coming out and saying President Trump is wrong, and where is British leadership? It is absolutely nowhere.
Martha Kearney: Well, I - you mentioned Lord Stern, and I spoke to him on the programme two days ago, and he actually said that people shouldn't get too worked up about this because other countries are going to go ahead with the agreement, especially China.
Ed Miliband: Well, that's not what Lord Stern said to me last night, because I spoke to him precisely about this. And he was a huge believer in the Paris Agreement and thinks it's incredibly important as an agreement for the future. Now, look, you're right in one sense, that it's good that China's going to go ahead and others are going to go ahead, but the reason why the British response matters is that the Paris Agreement was a fragile thing and a hard thing to negotiate, and the lack of American leadership and America withdrawing from it is bad, and let's make no bones about it, but it's so important that the rest of the world now says with determination, not just that we're going to carry on but says it's unacceptable, that you're a pariah of the international community, to withdraw on climate, to withdraw from it.
Martha Kearney: You've been very critical of Theresa May - she's actually campaigning in your neck of the woods, around Doncaster this morning. Are you worried?
Ed Miliband: She didn't - she didn't tell me. Um, no. Look, I'm not.
Martha Kearney: So how do you think the campaign's going?
Ed Miliband: I think what's happened in this campaign is that with every day that goes by, people have become much more sceptical about Theresa May, because they think she's a weak leader, basically. Because they think she's somebody who didn't admit her u-turn on social care, who refuses to debate, refuses to turn up, she goes missing, and now won't stand up to President Trump -
Martha Kearney: All right, you've made lots of criticisms about Theresa May -
Ed Miliband: - and - and, no, and I'll also say that Jeremy Corbyn has been strengthening in this campaign, because there are more people - this is the contrast of this campaign. I think the more people see of Jeremy Corbyn and what he's got to say, the more support he's gained -
Martha Kearney: And do you regret saying he should stand down? Do you regret saying he should stand down, as you told us in June 2016?
Ed Miliband: Well, what happened was that he not only won the Labour leadership election, and I think it was right that the whole of the Labour Party accepted that result, but I think he's shown, with his manifesto, and what he's done in this campaign, that he is actually somebody who's got what it takes. And, look, I think that, you know, let's see where we are on election day. I don't believe polls, as you know, given my 2015 experience.
Martha Kearney: Well, I'm sure not -
Ed Miliband: There are a lot of battles, there are a lot of battles ahead in this campaign -
Martha Kearney: A lot to go -
Ed Miliband: I do think there's illumination about leadership in this campaign.
Martha Kearney: Okay. Thank you very much for talking to us, Ed Miliband.