Author Archives: Robin Teverson

Lord Robin Teverson writes…A greener future? It’s not in the Tories’ nature

By Robin Teverson | Tue 2nd February 2016 - 10:58 am

No-one can say that this Government has not fully embraced David Cameron’s mantra to ‘cut the green crap.’ Since getting to power they have, one by one, removed, restricted and reduced the green initiatives put in place under the Liberal Democrats’ watch.

Today, in the House of Lords, we will stand against the latest cuts. The Government plan to cut the Feed-in-Tariff scheme early will result in nearly 20,000 losing their jobs and half of the solar sector disappearing more or less overnight. The Government snuck this past the Commons, and now, given a chance in the Lords, we will send it back.

Today we will remind the Government that supporting green industry is vital to building an economy fit for the future, and, more importantly than that, it will save the world in the long run.

Posted in Op-eds | 2 Comments

Robin Teverson writes … Keeping the green in the Green Investment Bank

By Robin Teverson | Mon 7th December 2015 - 12:13 pm

View image | gettyimages.com

Everybody knows that when you want to win an argument, you need to ‘walk the talk’. Doing the opposite to what you preach tends to fatally undermine your case.

When that argument is persuading the rest of the world, in Paris, to tackle the root causes of climate change, your actions back home act as a global shop window.

But saying one thing, and doing another, is exactly the course this Tory government has taken over green issues. And they do it with no apparent embarrassment, or even understanding of the problem.

So we have the Foreign Secretary in the United Nations, and Cameron at the opening of COP21 in Paris making speeches that even Lib Dems would applaud. But what’s the track record back here in Britain where they drive the nitty-gritty of climate policy?

Take the Green Investment Bank. Set up by Vince Cable in 2012, a Lib Dem manifesto commitment in 2010, over its short existence it has successfully invested £2.3 billion into the UK’s green economy bringing in a further £7 billion in from the private sector. Not just that, its operations are already profitable. As a result the UK has more renewables, more combined heat and power plants, more energy efficient road lighting, more heat pumps. It has been a great Coalition success, down to Lib Dems in government.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged climate change and green investment bank | 3 Comments

Robin Teverson writes … Doing cold smarter

By Robin Teverson | Thu 19th March 2015 - 9:36 am

View image | gettyimages.com

In the world of politics, energy is all too often around building shiny new power stations – whether gas or nuclear. Rather more positively it is about renewables – erecting wind or solar farms, and wind arrays off-shore.

Just recently, with Lib Dems in Government and in charge of DECC, we’ve got rather more sophisticated. Nowadays we also think about the demand side of the equation. Why not spread demand more evenly and avoid having to build all that expensive excess capacity? Or even better, increase energy efficiency to such a degree that we don’t need to generate so much power and heat in the first place.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged climate change and energy | 7 Comments

Lord Robin Teverson writes…Infrastructure Bill delivers a cluster of Liberal Democrat priorities

By Robin Teverson | Thu 19th June 2014 - 11:45 am

A very Liberal Democrat bill got its second reading in the Lords yesterday – the Infrastructure Bill. Lib Dems have already driven through this Parliament an Energy Act which will not just make sure that when it comes to energy infrastructure the lights stay one but that we decarbonise our energy supply. We’ve been rolling out super fast broadband across the British countryside. Often forgotten we also have a £35 billion railway investment programme over the next five …