Huhnes dream of Bank of the Church of Climatology scaled back

Another red letter day in the life of the Aardvark today and just like the last red letter day this one has got a little better as once again another green scheme that idiot Chris Huhne is in charge of, is about to  crash and burn.

Freshly returned from the car crash in Cancun, Huhne’s latest set back is the Green Investment Bank, or rather the lack of size of the bank.

Concerns within the Treasury mean that the Green Investment Bank is more likely to be a fund

Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, appears to concede that the Treasury’s concern that the liabilities taken on by a GIB would be added to the government’s budget book. He suggests instead that the new institution could morph into a bank able to raise finance over time as Britain’s deficit is reduced.

In an interview with the Guardian, he insisted that the government remained committed to setting up a bank and that setting up a fund initially was only one option. But the prospect of a delay on fully implementing this key green policy will anger environmentalists.

Upsets the environmentalists, nothing wrong with that.

“Obviously, if we were to turn around and have the GIB borrowing vast amounts of money tomorrow I can understand that managers of the national debt would be a little alarmed,” he said. “I am absolutely at one with the Treasury on the need to make sure our fiscal credibility is completely re-established. The key issue is whether or not having established our fiscal credibility, what then happens?

“There are phasing issues, there are transition issues. What is the point at which maybe it begins as a fund and later is a bank, whatever. Let there be no doubt that the first overwhelming priority of the government has to be to get the deficit down.”

Auditor Ernst & Young has said that, without a bank, only about a fifth of the £450bn investment needed for Britain to meet its carbon emissions targets over the next 15 years would be made.

Now about the Climate Change Act 2008 isn’t time that this was consigned to the landfill of history, just like Cap n Trade.