Sir – Readers aware of the perils of climate change will — like me — have been shocked at the one-sidedness of both the title and the content of Dr Lawrence Haar’s opinion piece last week (Green energy will cost us all, October 10).

In a purely monetary sense, green energy may, at present, cost more than carbon-based electricity generation, for two reasons.

The first is that green technologies are newcomers in an uncertain marketplace; initially high manufacturing and unit generation costs have fallen dramatically in recent years and will do so in future as demand continues to rise.

The second reason is that coal and gas energy prices reflect only extraction, generation and distribution costs and take no account of the environmental and eventual dire social costs of continuing to pump carbon into the atmosphere at the present rate. It is astonishing that Dr Haar’s piece makes no mention at all of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, published only a few weeks ago.

This concludes that global warming is unequivocal and is almost certainly the result of human carbon emissions. The 2006 Stern Review concluded that climate change could have very serious impacts on growth and economic development.

The costs of stabilising the climate through early switching to a low-carbon economy are significant but manageable; delay would be dangerous and the economic and social costs much greater. Lord Stern now says he underestimated the risks for humanity. In light of this, one has to wonder what planet Dr Haar is living on. Yes, green energy will cost us, but not using it will cost a lot more. We cannot simply leave it to our children and grandchildren to pick up the tab (by then greatly increased) for our ongoing extravagant use of fossil fuels.

Robin Gill, Headington