Let's pretend lobbying politicians and globalist agendas are net beneficial

They arent... but let's pretend they are.

This curious headline just jumped out at me…

What we have here is eco-warrior pandering and political lobbying couched within a deliberately deceptive mainstream media narrative.

Whose research was it anyhow?

The research was purportedly done by lobbyists and suit-and-tie climate change eco-warriors from E3G - which is a private NFP UK-based company that admits to sucking millions in tax dollars from the governments of several countries and nation states, and presents itself to the world as a climate change think tank.

But I note their website doesn’t include the logo and recognition of some of their more well-known and notoriously biased supporters, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), who just gave them another juicy big pile of shiny gold rocks…

And in return BMGF received several favourable mentions, including this one…

Which my search on another website revealed also went to E3G…

Anyway, E3G also regularly drops their press releases to communist China…

because… why?

Oh… and I almost forgot to mention. Key staff and company directors from E3G are also active in the World Economic Forum (WEF)…

And the WEF regularly publish and heavily promote the work of staff at E3G…

What did they say this time?

The thought process these political lobbyist activists go through must be totally devoid of even an iota of common sense. But before I explain why, let’s look at what they say…

E3G claim that if only the government would stop dragging their heels and force landlords to have to meet a minimum C rating on the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Scheme - all renters in the UK would save a minimum £570 on their energy (electric and gas) bills each year.

Practically every newspaper, online media outlet and similar eco-warrior organisation who has some funding from BMGF or News UK Ltd or ties to the WEF has picked up this ostensibly newsworthy claim, and as a result it has been seen all over the place (for example: here, here and even in French here).

On the surface this seems like a wonderful thing - and it is deliberately couched to appear that way. However, lurking below the surface are a few really troubling gotchas that actually mean that if this policy was to come into effect, existing and future renters would be in a *lot* of bother…

What’s wrong with it?

First, let’s begin by recognising that 72% of rentals on RightMove are D or E rated under the current EPC scheme. They acknowledge this in their report…

However, their report vacuously only recognises the benefit - the £570 you ‘might’ save on your energy bills - whilst completely ignoring any and all of the potential negatives.

Consider this scenario…

You are a landlord. You own a pair of terrace houses that are more than 80 years old and in spite of their age are actually pretty liveable. However, they are E rated under the current ECP scheme. You call in several builders and get quotes to insulate within the roof and under-floor spaces, to add false walls and insulation to those walls that are actually cold brick (many older houses have plastered brick interior walls on the outer or exterior boundary walls) and to install certification-ready double-glazing solutions and make every window and door airtight. The cheapest quotes come in at more than £15,000. Per house.

That’s £30,000 you simply do not have. the rent on these places is only around £1200 per month each, and the mortgages eat up most of that.

Your choices are:

1. Take out a new loan or second mortgage to cover the costs, at a cost of around £700 per month for 5 years

or

2. Advise the tenants that on the date when these new requirements come into effect, you will unfortunately have to evict them because you cannot meet compliance requirements and will be no longer able to rent out the houses

The second option means you either sit on two empty properties that you cannot affordand while hoping that you can still cover the mortgages, or that you sell them… very likely to one of the big Globalist Billionaire funded companies that are buying up private homes all over the world.

Under New Zealand law since 2019 houses have required prescribed levels of insulation in the roof and underfloor space. However, unlike the E3G proposal here, double or triple gazed windows, air tightness requirements and particular eco-motivated heating options were not included in those regulations. Landlords in NZ who failed to comply faced fines of up to £7,200 per non-compliant property, and multiple offenders faced having their properties seized and the cost of potential compensation for their tenants. The government was told by eco-health warrior groups that the regulation was necessary because tenants were “trapped by higher energy bills” and that the cost of compliance would only be NZD$3,000-4,000. However, in practice, it was anywhere from NZD$10,000-20,000.

Then... consider the E3G claim of £570 a year in savings for the tenant. Who do they think the landlord will pass on the cost of compliance to? If the Landlord is spending potentially £10,000 or more on new works to insulate and replace windows etc. then he is going to naturally put the rent up to cover costs. Ultimately that “saving” of £570 could become as much as an additional £1200-3000 per year on the rent. In the New Zealand example landlords increased rents in some cases by as much as 15% to cover the financial burden - rises that came in markets where rents had been stable for over five years and that landlords said were in direct response to the insulation laws. The government through their Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment was exceedingly quick (i.e. within 24 hours) to ascribe these rent increases to anything else… the little known and unquantifiable ‘existing market forces’ came out as the immediate winner…

Under the proposed regulation for the UK landlords would have only a small allowed time to spend potentially huge amounts of money on their properties before they would be no longer able to rent those that remain uncompliant. While I have little love for some landlords (there are some shocker horror stories out there), they are already required to be immigration officials and undertake other roles for the council and government in order to ‘operate’. This just seems like yet another burden that will actually negatively impact on costs for the tenant. And for some of these houses it would be very difficult to do anything about complying at all, meaning those houses could be lost to the rental market for a time. Too many people are unable to find homes within their current income and budget. This policy just seems like eco-nonsense that will further increase the housing crisis - and is yet another globalist fueled dictat which proposes no middle ground or pathway for solutions that could get us to the ultimately laudable goal incrementally or over time, rather than by x day at y time.