Connecting the Future - Greenpeace UK

Connecting the future: the UK’s renewable energy strategy
Introduction
not gimmickry’ (Brown 2007); while the Prime Minister’s Strategy unit has
acknowledged that the UK’s international position in this field is heavily dependent on
the commitment it shows to reducing emissions at home (Strategy Unit 2007, p 45):
‘The credibility of the UK’s international position is founded on the
strength of its own action and domestic performance.’
Strong policy action, clarity of vision and delivery on targets will all be necessary to
ensure that the UK achieves its aspiration to be a global leader on climate change.
Despite this rhetoric of commitment and urgency, however, the Department
of Trade and Industry (DTI) and its successor the Department of Business,
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) have actively sought, during
negotiations, to minimise the UK’s contribution to the overall EU target. A memo
leaked from BERR in 2007 showed that officials were at that time producing a
strategy to commit the UK to sourcing only 9% of its energy from renewables
by 2020 (BERR 2007). Even now that the proposed national levels have been
published by the Commission, the government continues to be equivocal about
the final allocation: instead of accepting the 15% figure on the basis of the UK’s
relative wealth and potential for developing its ample renewable resources, the
government views it as a ‘good starting point for discussion’ within ongoing
Council negotiations (BERR 2008a). At the same time, the government is trying
to minimise the impact of whatever renewable energy target is finally agreed, for
example by proposing that carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects attached
to fossil fuel generating plants could be counted as contributing to the national
renewables target (European Council 2008):
‘As a means of incentivising support for these projects, we should like
to see these projects taken into account in assessing Member States’
compliance with national renewables targets. Of course CCS is not a
renewable, but this could need to be [sic] treated as a special case …’
Energy technology and infrastructure assets can last for decades, so if there
is no national commitment to putting in place as soon as possible the assets
needed to achieve the EU’s 2020 targets, then there will be little chance of
the UK either meeting those targets, or having sustainable energy systems for
years to come. There would be long-term environmental and economic costs
to missing the targets: the longer the UK takes to shift towards a low-carbon
system, the higher the costs of action and the greater and the more greenhouse
gases will be emitted in total before emissions start to tail off (DTI 2005). One
reason is that delaying action to update or upgrade infrastructure will result in
missing opportunities to do so incrementally; instead it will need to be upgraded
or replaced rapidly at the end of the target period, which will be more expensive
and have negative effects on the wider economy. After years of hostility
towards measures intended to reduce emissions, even the Confederation of
British Industry (CBI) has come round to the position that delaying action will
lead to higher costs in the long-term, and will also mean that the UK may lose
out on the commercial opportunities offered by an international trade in