26th August 2007

Read Stroud District Green party's letter to the local press.

The ice caps are melting, global weather patterns are going haywire and no one can still meaningfully deny the dangers of man made climate change. So news that the Government will significantly miss its 20% target cut in carbon emissions by 2020 policy is shocking (i).

Gordon Brown may have commissioned the Stern report, but I fear he never read it. Indeed he has downgraded the Ministerial Committee on Energy and the Environment, reduced rather than increased green taxes and is reported to be planning to drop a rule that allows Councils to insist on renewable energy for new developments (ii). Transport is one of the greatest contributers to our carbon output, yet he wants to increase this by expanding our roads programme, massively expanding aviation and seems quite happy to allow the public transport network to decay (iii).

We urgently need to reverse one of Thatcher's many great mistakes and re-nationalise the rail and bus networks. People are being disastrously priced off rail and buses and into planes and cars. We need increased investment in a combination of wave, wind, solar, geothermal, methane capture and numerous other sustainable technologies (iv).

Feed-in tariffs have been a runaway success in Germany and other countries, stimulating both large and small scale renewable projects and supporting many thousands of jobs. Our current mess of policies urgently needs to be phased out so that a new system, which is more effective and better value for the taxpayer, can be brought in to allow the whole of the UK to contribute to pollution free energy.

Cllr. Philip Booth (Green party),
Stroud District councillor for the Randwick, Ruscombe and Whiteshill ward,







Notes for editor

(i) See: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/uk_may_miss_carbon_targets_23082007.html

Also Cambridge Econometrics released on 23 August 'UK energy and the environment', its twice yearly bulletin, in which Prof Paul Ekins calculates that the proportion of electricity generated by renewable sources will increase from 4% in 2006 to 5% in 2010 (compared to the Government's 10% target), although if the proposed new policies and reforms to the Renewables Obligation are implemented it could reach 12% by 2015. The report estimates that UK carbon dioxide emissions will be 15% below their level in 1990 by 2020.  Summary available at:
http://www.camecon.com/press_releases/download/UKE3072.pdf

Shortly after Britain signed up to an EU commitment to generate 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, government officials briefed ministers that Britain had no chance of getting near that target and suggested ways of wriggling out of it. Not only did Tony Blair sign up to the EU commitment in March, he claimed credit it for it. This is what he said at the time: "There is some pride in our country because this agenda very much grew out of what we tried to do in our G8 presidency and our presidency of the EU. It is tremendous to think that 18 months later we have what I think is a historic summit." His words fit uncomfortably with a subsequent internal briefing paper prepared by officials. It said that Britain had achieved "little so far" on wind, solar or hydroelectric sources of power, and even getting to 9% from the current level of 2% would be "challenging". On current policies, renewables would only account for 5% of Britain's overall energy mix by 2020. Rather than change the policies, officials at the relabelled DTI - the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) - suggested ways of dodging the target. They advised lobbying EU member states to agree that the target could be interpreted more flexibly by including investment in solar farms in north Africa, or by counting nuclear energy as "renewable". See Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2147515,00.html

(ii)  Housebuilders are trying to persuade the government to ditch a key policy designed to cut carbon emissions through constructing green homes. Britain's renewables industry and many local authorities are concerned that intense lobbying may have persuaded the government to rethink. At stake is the so-called Merton rule, named after the London borough that established it in 2003. It requires any new building to reduce its carbon emissions by 10% through the use of renewables. More than 150 local authorities have either introduced it or are about to adopt it. There is growing concern that the House Builders Federation (HBF) could kill off the Merton rule. See Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/aug/14/energy.renewableenergy1

(iii) See FoE:
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/uk_motor_industry_failing_25042006.html

(iv) The Green Party have long warned that renewables energy policies are failing, and have called for 'Feed in tariffs', which guarantee prices for exported renewable energy. Even with Blair gone, it is clear that the government is not willing to sort out its mess of policies on renewable energy, and that ten years of rising emissions will continue -  matched with more green-wash. The terms of the Energy Review made it clear where this government's priorities for energy lie: further investment in nuclear power, support for the red herring that is bio-fuels, and consistent failure to properly support demand-reduction or the fledgling renewable energy market. The UK could be a world leader in the young, clean and cutting-edge renewable energy industry.  We are better placed than anywhere else in Europe to access this source of power, but are failing badly to realise our potential. For officials to say the government 'has achieved little so far on renewables' is a huge understatement, given the massively underfunded and confusing mix of incentives currently in place. The best way to support and develop the renewables industry is to adopt a simple framework of guaranteed prices for exported renewable energy.