This story was originally published by the WND News Center
(WND News Center) – As gasoline prices rise to record levels, the International Energy Agency (IEA) is calling for energy restrictions, such as banning the use of private cars in cities on Sundays, in what has been dubbed energy “lockdowns.”
In its March 2022 report, “A 10-Point Plan to Cut Oil Use,” the International Energy Agency proposed reducing speed limits, working from home, cutting business air travel and imposing an SUV “tax,” in order to combat the rise in fuel costs and “bring down demand,” all in light of the “emerging global energy crisis.”
The IEA attributed the rise in fuel costs to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Governments have all the necessary tools at their disposal to put oil demand into decline in the coming years, which would support efforts to both strengthen energy security and achieve vital climate goals,” the IEA report states.
Additionally, the IEA called for the government to implement changes to oil demand in pursuit of “net zero”: “But governments must also consider accelerating their clean energy transitions and building on their net zero emissions strategies.”
However, the IEA revealed that the changes would chiefly effect and “require changes in the behaviour of consumers, supported by government measures.”
Among the proposals the group makes, in order to “bring down demand,” are:
Reducing highway speed limits by about 6 miles per hour; implement more working from home up to 3 days a week; implementing street changes to encourage walking and cycling; car-free Sundays in cities and restrictions on other days; cutting transit fares; policies that encourage more carpooling; and cutting business air travel.
Another idea is “restricting private cars’ use of roads in large cities to those with even number-plates some weekdays and to those with odd-numbered plates on other weekdays.”
The IEA stipulated that such measures should be permanent: “reducing oil use must not remain a temporary measure,” the wrote.
Writing on his website Climate Depot, former Capitol Hill staffer Marc Morano called the plan “COVID 2.0.”
Morano, who managed GOP communications for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Work, said the report “sounds an awful lot like an energy version of COVID lockdowns.”
“Instead of opening America back up for domestic energy production, we are told to suffer and do with less and are prescribed the same failed lockdown-style policies we endured for COVID,” Morano said.
Morano slated the IEA’s suggestions and expressed scepticism about the ideas presented, due to their similarity to COVID restrictions.
“It is odd how COVID ‘solutions’ also allegedly helped the climate and now the same solutions are being touted to deal with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” he said.
Morano observed that the “proposed ‘solutions’ to climate change, COVID, and now the Russian war are all exactly the same – hammer the poor and middle class with more restrictions on travel, less freedom, and even more surrendering of power to unelected government regulators.”
Reprinted with permission from the WND News Center