Baroness Jenny Jones

Green Party peer Jenny Jones has called for the billions of pounds currently being used to subsidise Drax Power Station to be used for insulating homes and installing solar panels. Drax’s wood-burning power station is the UK’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide.

Jones said: “Drax is burning ancient forests in North America and well established woodlands in the UK. It is a pollution menace to local people, as well as the planet. Burning wood is not a sustainable strategy and government would get far more benefit from using this subsidy to insulate homes and businesses, so that we can cut down on the long term energy bills.

“This is not a green energy scandal, it is a business scam. Far more jobs would be generated if this money were invested in insulation and solar panel installations.”

Jones’ comments follow an investigation from BBC Panorama which she says ‘exposed the truth’ behind National Power’s claims that it protected no go areas in Canada that it would not log.

In July 2023, Jones asked the minister responsible in the Lords about trees from old forests being felled and transported from Canada to burn in the UK. The minister replied to say: “I don’t necessarily take as absolute facts the statements by some Canadian environmentalists.”

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Image credit: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Creative Commons