Barry grilled experts at the Environmental Audit Committee on aligning U.K economic goals with environmental sustainability and had quite the time of it.
The OBR had submitted evidence which said that economic GDP growth led to a cleaner environment to which Barry rubbished this as a fallacy of the base line. Quite rightly the only way many countries end up as great polluters in the first place is through getting rich. A second part is a geographical fallacy as the U.K now exports its emissions.
The other concerning point Barry raised is that the OBR identified the costs associated with climate change are a long term ongoing risk of fiscal concern. However, they also described necessary spending to move to net zero is described as a major risk of fiscal concern.
Barry then made the point that any other type of “necessary spending” wouldn’t be considered a fiscal risk due to its proposed necessity. The witness from the OBR’s answer made for particularly interesting viewing.
The full exchanges can be viewed below