Sir – Your First Person and correspondent last week (October 10) could not be more wrong. Burning ever more gas and oil will damage our planet and send energy prices soaring. Only renewable energy lasts and will not create climate change.

It is sensible to subsidise solar, wind and other renewable systems, because their running costs are tiny. The only way to stabilise energy costs is to reduce our dependence on gas and oil which are ever most costly to find and extract.

Closing down the older inefficient power station at Didcot was a move in the right direction. It still leaves the other gas-fired generator in place. Step by step, we and the rest of the world have to turn more and more to sun, wind and wave power instead.

It is tragic that energy companies and their supporters are determined to wreck the environment and cream off profits from ever-rising prices.

Labour’s plan to freeze energy prices and break up the monopoly of the energy giants will give everyone a breathing space. We need to use that space to insulate our homes, use less energy and prepare for a better low-carbon future for all.

John Tanner, Board member for a cleaner, greener Oxford, Oxford