ED Davey will today warn of a "diabolical cocktail" from the Conservative Right that marries climate change denial with europhobia to threaten the long-term structure of UK climate change and energy policy.
In a speech to the IPPR think-tank in London, the Liberal Democrat Energy and Climate Change Secretary will say he fears that, on climate change and energy policy, political consensus is in danger of breaking down.
"From the Right, fringes of the Conservative Party and Ukip are parroting the arguments of the most discredited climate change deniers; seizing on any anomaly in the climate data to attempt to discredit the whole," he will say. "This is undermining public trust in the scientific evidence for climate change; overwhelming though it is."
Mr Davey will brand this type of climate change denying conservatism as "wilfully ignorant, head-in-the-sand, nimbyist conservatism".
He will add: "When married to the europhobia innate to parts of the Conservative Party, you have a diabolical cocktail that threatens the whole long-term structure of UK climate change and energy policy.
"If you accept the logic of climate change, you have to accept the logic of European co-operation to tackle it."
The Secretary of State will also attack Labour's approach, saying it will "threaten investment in energy security, push up prices for consumers in the long-run, destroy competition by solidifying the power of the Big Six and do nothing at all to reduce emissions".
Mr Davey has denied that his call for an investigation into the profits of energy giants was an attempt to seize the initiative from Labour on power prices. He stressed how, from day one, the Coalition had been focused on increasing competition.
The Energy Secretary said accounts published over four years showed energy giants were making more than three times the profit supplying gas as electricity while British Gas and SSE were making more than five times the profit.
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