Danny Alexander is right to recognise Liberal Democrats will not be forgiven for delivering George Osborne’s attacks on the environment. Alexander’s ‘Generating Growth and Jobs in a Time of Austerity’ conference motion is pretty bold and we hope it is an opening salvo in a serious re-adjustment in the Liberal Democrats’ environment agenda in Government.
Alexander’s intervention is needed. Osborne has seized the environment as an issue and is using it to play to the Tory right in an attempt to save his political skin. This has involved much tilting at wind turbines and charming his friends and relatives by proposing a dash for gas – last week’s announcement on new North Sea drilling was largely made possible by his exceedingly generous tax breaks for fossil fuels.
Osborne even had the audacity to try to force Energy Secretary Ed Davey into an unholy deal – a concession over the Renewables Obligation support for wind energy in return for agreement to promote climate-busting new gas in our future energy mix. As Friends of the Earth has previously argued, Ed Davey must stand up to this pressure. This autumn the Government’s gas strategy and the latest draft of the Energy Bill will be announced and we will see whether he’s managed to hold firm.
Danny Alexander’s motion pushes back on Osborne’s regressive approach. It calls for action on two issues which Friends of the Earth thinks are central to the Government getting it right on climate: strengthening the Green Investment Bank, and decarbonising our electricity sector by 2030. Alexander is to be commended for understanding the importance of these issues and setting Liberal Democrats on a course for change.
But Alexander’s motion proposals will have to be tightened to deliver the action needed. We hope delegates at the Lib Dem conference will take every opportunity to do so. It’s worth getting it right – for political credibility and economic as well as environmental reasons.
The Green Bank needs to be able to borrow now instead of waiting until economic recovery, because green investment will help to dig Britain out of its financial mess. A new CBI report shows that the UK has the ability to become a global front-runner in low-carbon products and services, which could add £20 billion extra in annual GDP by 2015. The green economy is growing faster than the polluting brown economy – and we need the Bank to be fully functioning to keep driving that success forward.
And if we are going to cut the carbon from our electricity by 2030, we need a huge shift away from increasingly costly fossil fuels onto home-grown energy from our sun, wind and sea – central to Friends of the Earth’s Clean British Energy campaign.
That will only happen with the right political framework. Alexander’s motion on energy decarbonisation should call for the Government to accept, not defy, the advice of the independent Committee on Climate Change that “[Ministers] must rule out the dash for gas, and set clear carbon objectives in the context of draft energy legislation and the forthcoming gas generation strategy.” The Committee wrote to Ed Davey in March specifically to recommend a carbon objective of 50 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour by 2030 – explaining it is the level needed to decarbonise our electricity and the cheapest way to meet our legal commitment to tackling climate change.
Friends of the Earth and many other environment NGOs are very concerned that despite protesting opposition to Osborne’s approach, Ed Davey – who as Energy and Climate Change Secretary should be leading the fight – is still not saying he accepts the Committee’s advice and will act on it. Liberal Democrats at conference can help get the party back on track on the environment by backing policy that both supports the Committee’s recommendation and will see it delivered. The environment movement and many voters who backed Liberal Democrats at the last election will be watching this year’s conference motion with interest. But the real test is whether this autumn’s Energy Bill will deliver a clear path to a zero-carbon electricity system. Liberal Democrat Ministers must draw a green line of principle and block Osborne’s dash for gas that shows reckless disregard for our climate change obligations.
Danny Alexander has made a good start.
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12 Comments
Over two years into the government and we have no major Keynesian Green New Deal, the great retro-fit of the housing stock has not started, neoliberal economic policies are still being pursued, and we are in the third quarter of a deepening double dip recession.
If that’s a good start, I’d hate to see a bad one.
This is the first line of the motion. It’s total nonsense; and its very concerning that our ministers are pesisting in perpetuating this fabrication. The rates are so low because there is nowhere safe for investors to put their money, not because of the government’s credibility in financial markets. And there is nowhere safe or attractive to invest it because austerity has killed growth. The government has absolutely no economic or fiscal credibility.
Frankly this motion does little more than sprinkle glitter on a turd. At heart our economic policy is still rotten to the core: because it still fails to recognise that the governmenthas worsened the collapse of aggreagate demand; and because the government will not change course to full-blown Keynesian policy and persists with its socially and economically destructive asuterity agenda.
In many constituencies at the next election the Greens will be trying to attract the votes of former Lib Dems, and if we cannot demonstrate a good environmental record in government we will deserve to lose them.
Can you give us an estimate by how much extra generating all our power from reneweable sources would cost?
Hackney Lib Dems have organised a debate between Joel Kenrick, a former special advisor to Chris Huhne and Greanpeace on this very topic. See the details here; http://www.hackneylibdems.org.uk/events.php
Who do you mean by “you”: are you asking the author to do this, or just anyone?
Do you mean the power that we would require after applying the full potential energy efficiency mesures, technologies and lifestyle changes that would could reasonably do; or do you mean the power we would required to generate the same level of electrical output as currently used?
Do you want to know how much it would cost at current per unit renewable costs, or how much it might reasonably be estimated to costs if we were investing in the development of renewable technologies at a much higher level to help bring down the per unit cost for renewable generation in the coming years?
@Tim , well I think ‘you’ is fairly obviously the author.
The cost electricty per Kwh compared to current costs if we were all reneweable making reasonable assumptions about the reduction in reneweable energy and assuming our overall energy consumption is at around current levels.
I assume FOE have done this or something like it otherwise it would surely be irresponsible to want all renewable power, but i can’t see it on their website.
I tend to believe, evidently rather unfashionably, that energy policy is the business of the Energy Secretary, not the Treasury. The Treasury has a limited role as holder of the nation’s purse strings which means it should set and enforce guidelines to, for instance, ensure that plans aren’t smuggled through on the back of dodgy accounting tricks and suchlike. Unfortunately, the Treasury takes exactly the opposite approach; it uses its position as a licence to meddle without responsibility and is the chief culprit in dreaming up accounting dodges with PFI as exhibit A.
That said, Osborne needs something to save his skin as Liz Hutchins says. His economic policy was a no-hoper from day one and built on a complete failure to understand how the economy works. If he had been right we would by now have been seeing quite healthy growth – that we aren’t means his numbers don’t add up.
So I’m with Tim Nichols on this; it’s deeply disappointing to see LDs endorsing destructive Tory fantasies rather than contributing something original, something liberal perhaps (although I don’t agree with his ‘full-blown Keynesian’ proposal).
@Simon
You’d think, – and hope – FoE have.
Moreover, you’d think – and hope! – DECC have done it! Have you tried their website, or any PQ answers fro DECC?
There is some informtion on costs of generation in
http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/statistics/projections/71-uk-electricity-generation-costs-update-.pdf
https://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/reports/Cost_Generation_Commentary.pdf
Accordig to Figure 1 of the latter, reneweable energy costs excluding carbon costs are roughly twice the costs of coal or gas generation, with offshore wind energy being the most expensive. Figure 3 seems to show that offshore wind is also the costliest performer when carbon emission costs are included at £30 per tonne.
.. and the first document also shows Offshore Wind is the most expensive, taking account of all costs including CO2 and carbon storage, but only bya whisker. Coal is almost as expensive. The cheapest are Gas CCGT and onshore wind. (see the 85th page of the pdf). What a pity that onshore wind is so unpopular!
Re the cost of renewable energy … Hmm … what about the cost of not adopting it … in the UK the costs will include the flooding of much of our grade one agricultural land, coastal towns and cities. Globally, the major expansion of deserts, the flooding of the huge delta areas such as those in Pakistan etc; the untold human misery caused by population displacement and almost certainly armed conflict, the loss of tiny oceanic islands and their unique cultures. This would also represent a complete failure of present generations in our stewardship of the earth. The short termism of Osborne and his ilk must be resisted.
A very interesting wave power website I came across the other day is at: http://www.pelamiswave.com/global-resource. An example of British innovation at its best.
Richard thanks for that link.
Tim , nothing on the FOE website, interesting to know if hy haven’t new he work at all or think he resuts would not help their case.
I knw that LDV ask their contributors to respond to comments where appropriate so it may be telling that Liz hasnt done so