Wasted chances on renewable energy
Environmentalists say the news that civil servants have briefed ministers that Britain has virtually no chance of meeting the new European Union renewable energies target comes as little surprise to them and those in the industry who have long complained of the lack of proper government policies to boost the new technologies.
The briefing paper obtained by the Guardian shows that on current policies Britain will have only 5% of its energy from renewables by 2020, a fraction of the EU target of 20%.
Mike Childs, campaigns director at Friends of the Earth, said: “We are an island that has fantastic potential for renewable power and could be leading the world with a major new industry. Instead, this government seems determined to back failed nuclear power and squash the prospects of a clean renewables industry.”
Andrew Simms of the New Economics Foundation (nef) agreed: “[Prime minister] Gordon Brown needs to use his new authority to ensure that civil servants behind the scenes are not undermining international commitments that the government has signed up to.”
Other countries are doing much better. Germany, with a strong system of support for solar, wind and hydro power, has been expanding its use of renewables rapidly and now has 200 times as much installed solar power and 10 times as much wind power as Britain. [For more on the contrast between Germany and the UK on climate-change issues, see here.] Many other countries across Europe are also making rapid strides in renewable energy.
So what has gone wrong? We look at the various areas of UK policy on climate change in turn.
Renewables
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