Growth at all costs: climate change, fossil fuel subsidies and the Treasury

The UK oil and gas industry receives huge government subsidy, while support for renewable energy is cut. Is Treasury control of Whitehall fuelling a shortsighted economic agenda?

There are no oil rigs visible from Aberdeen itself, but evidence of the foundations of Europe's oil capital is easy to see: plaques for the head offices of major fossil fuel companies, helicopters ferrying workers to and from offshore platforms, designer shops for a city that has more millionaires than any other in the UK.

It is not far from the centre of the granite city to the poorer wards, though, where like so many places, people struggling to pay ever-increasing energy bills are still forced to live in cold, damp, poorly insulated homes.

This pursuit of what some would see as growth at all costs is rooted in centuries of Treasury control of Whitehall

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Encouraging consumers to waste less will not win a competition with building an expensive incinerator

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