Competition has not been damaged by current policies to tackle climate change by reducing UK annual emissions of greenhouse gases.
That’s the conclusion of a new review of the economic evidence published this month by the Grantham Research Institute and the ESRC Centre at the London School of Economics.
The LSE said the report ‘points out that the UK’s climate change policies can increase the competitiveness of the UK in the long term by encouraging greater innovation and efficiency.’
In a statement, the LSE said: “The authors examined a number of studies which suggested that climate change policies could, in theory, lead to a small number of companies re-locating from the UK to countries with less stringent policies to reduce emissions.
“However, they also found that recent studies documenting the actual impacts of climate change policies show that carbon prices have not been high enough to prompt any detectable re-location by companies…As carbon prices rise in the future, the Government may need to offer temporary help to some companies which use a lot of energy.”
For more detail, please visit the LSE Grantham Institute website.
