Steve Baker is considering running for Prime Minister and if he wins he will dismantle many of Boris Johnson’s green policies, the MP has said.
The High Wycombe MP, who chairs the European Research Group, which is seen as pushing for a hard Brexit, has often hinted at his dislike of green measures, once retweeting a report which claimed the climate crisis was not happening.
He said many green measures, including paying farmers to help the environment, were “anti-human life on Earth in the name of environmentalism” and said he would expand gas production in this country because there was “no short-term threat from the climate crisis.
“I’ve got enough people urging me to run that I have to give it some serious thought myself,” he said of entering the race in the event Johnson is ousted.
Other politicians are horrified at the idea that the culture war of the climate crisis could become part of any leadership election.
Greens MP Caroline Lucas said: “Our climate cannot be a pawn in the psychodrama of the Tory leadership.” She added that a Prime Minister with Baker’s views “would be a disaster of unimaginable proportions”.
Baker spoke to the Guardian after an event in Parliament organized by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a think tank that has been identified as one of the leading sources of climate skepticism in the UK and of which Baker is a trustee.
He said he would end the drive for more wind and solar power, explaining: “They are fundamentally intermittent sources of energy. And therefore, if we want to maintain our standard of living and especially in industry, we have to cover these intermittent sources with something else.
Instead, it will increase the country’s use and domestic production of gas, although it admits it will support carbon capture and storage.
“I think if the public found that they got a gas discount on their energy bills because they accepted shale gas production near their homes, I think that would be extremely popular with them,” Baker said.
He said a local Indian restaurant in his constituency was struggling with its energy bills, adding that it might have to close if prices did not come down. “If that’s the cost of our literal survival in the short term, people would understand that, but the truth is we’re not in any danger in the short term,” he said.
Measures to stop wildlife extinction and store carbon in the ground would also be at risk if Baker becomes prime minister. He will run on a platform to repeal plans to pay farmers to protect the environment instead of producing food, he said.
“What I want are policies that can feed us all,” he said, adding: “That includes actually growing food like we do in the UK. I’m afraid some of the policies being passed are just anti-life. They are anti-human life on Earth in the name of protecting the environment and I want us to live thriving and fulfilling lives with a healthy environment around us.”
The MP said “we are at risk from extreme environmental policies” and accused climate campaigners of “terrifying children”.
“I consider this to be child abuse, it’s not right.”
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He does not believe the high-emissions scenarios presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are likely to happen. “High emissions scenarios are too often presented as a likely outcome,” he said, adding: “I was involved in risk management as an aerospace engineer, and if the risk is catastrophic and frequent, you better do something about it now.” But if the risk is catastrophic and infinitely unlikely, then you just don’t do anything about it because it’s not going to happen.
His views do not coincide with those of climate scientists. The IPCC’s third report, which was compiled by hundreds of scientists over several years and signed by most of the world’s governments, calls for action now to avoid climate catastrophe.
He warned that 1.5C of global warming was unattainable unless greenhouse gas emissions peaked by 2025, and said temperatures would rise to more than 3C, with catastrophic consequences, unless policies and action were urgently reinforced.
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