Sammy Wilson: ‘climate change lobby could have us eating maggots’

The DUP MP said the green lobby should have the “courage to spell out” what proposals for zero carbon emissions by 2045 would mean for ordinary citizens.

“Academic researchers who don’t have to worry about votes are more honest about the practical consequences of meeting such targets,” he said.

“We already know that, even at the present levels of renewable energy productions, consumers are paying £12bn a year in subsidies to those businesses which produce renewable energy from wind turbines, solar panels, anaerobic digesters and other forms of renewable energy.

“To increase this to 70%, as has been proposed in NI, will mean a trebling of the subsidies from today’s levels.

“These subsidies do not come out of Government but are added directly to consumer’s bills.”

Mr Wilson said that while such measures may reduce the amount of gas and oil extracted from the earth, the ambitious target will lead to even more polluting “because it will require increases of 4000% in earth metals such as lithium, graphite and nickel, which are all mined in the most environmentally unfriendly way and their mining does far more damage than oil and gas ever will.”

He said: “It is not only consumers’ pockets but their palates that will suffer. A report recently by academics at Cambridge University has said that we must change the way we eat.

“Rearing cows and growing rice releases methane into the atmosphere and therefore we have to reduce our food output. This is bad news for the farming industry in Northern Ireland However, the news gets even worse.

“These researchers are claiming that we need to create ‘risk resilient diets’ in order to cut CO2 emissions, which means in future, our food will have to include insect larva, maggots, seaweed and algae.”

Mr Wilson said that parents struggling to get children to eat broccoli will not be enthusiastic about the “climate zealots’ diet” and added: “It may be easy to buy into the virtue signalling policies of reducing CO2.

“It’s not so attractive when the impact on cost of living, jobs and what we eat is spelt out.”

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