Confounding Decisions on Combatting Climate Change by the UK Government

The new Conservative government is actually letting slip its commitments to renewable energy and global warming mitigation. The bad decisions continue to come, and do not add up to a policy strategy consistent with the UK’s emissions and efficiency targets, and more generally with fighting climate change.

Last 7 days, the government announced it would scrap the zero carbon houses target for 2016. The target was announced a long time in advance (in 2006), and nine many years of industry commitment could now be lost. This is a huge setback in the path to a low carbon UK, and undermines the trustworthiness of government energy and environment policy.

This follows the abolition of the Energy Efficiency Deployment Workplace immediately after the May elections. Work was seen as a potential game-changer simply three years ago, and this transfer could reduce energy effectiveness to the secondary and minor role it played in yesteryear.

Power down

Sadly, other recent decisions additionally throw into question the Conservative government’s green qualifications. In June this year, it declared new onshore wind farms would be excluded from a subsidy plan from April 2016, a year earlier compared to expected. Amber Rudd, the Assistant of State for Energy and Climate Change, stated at the time that there were “enough subsidised [onshore wind] tasks in the pipeline to meet the renewable energy commitments”. She claimed financial assistance would be shifted to technologies that needed them more, even though she did not specify which technologies those might be.

The announcement dashed hopes that Rudd’s visit might signal a serious, smart approach to reducing carbon pollutants. Critics said the move could put thousands of jobs at risk and makes it even less likely that the UK might meet its renewable energy focuses on for 2020 and beyond, for which Carbon Brief suggests the country is already behind schedule.

Shale we dance?

In contrast, fracking received huge tax breaks from the previous (coalition) government, with David Cameron declaring they were “going all out for shale”, even as environmental groups suggested it might make it impossible for the UK to meet emission reduction targets.

The momentum is not slowing: the actual 2015 summer budget makes it pay off the newly elected government really wants to move faster on “sweeteners” to appeal to, or appease, affected residents by bringing forward proposals for a sovereign wealth account for communities that web host shale gas development. What’s more, drilling restrictions are being reduced to the extent that essential wildlife habitats are now reasonable game.

Looking back at the 2015 Traditional Party manifesto, we find the phrases “climate change” and “worldwide warming” appear only five times between them (compare 27 instances of the word “immigration”). There is a declaration of intention to act on climate change, to push for a strong global offer, and support for the Global warming Act, but the language is vague, without specific systems or proposed policies.

However, the actual manifesto headlines the government’s intention to halt the spread associated with onshore wind. Rudd referred to this in her first appearance as Secretary of State before her departmental Select Committee , arguing that the end to wind energy subsidies didn’t come as a surprise to the industry. She further stated she is happier with carbon decrease commitments than renewables commitments. This particular brings to mind her recent call to make nuclear power stations more “beautiful” to win over public support.

The government’s rhetoric around renewables focuses on the costs in order to consumers, raising fears of more premature subsidy cuts. Meanwhile, gas and oil are highlighted as an answer to energy security, no matter what the costs. Given this unfavourable policy environment, and considering that the statutory Global warming Committee’s latest report flagged coverage uncertainty as the key danger to meeting our co2 commitments, we should worry if and how the UK will meet these commitments, which build up to the 2050 target of decreasing emissions by 80% compared to a 1990 baseline.

Meanwhile, analysis by the Green Alliance suggests that behind the predicted 3.3% reduction in spending across government by 2020 there lurk much bigger reductions in certain areas. Looking at the Department for Energy and Climate Change, as well as allowing ring fencing to cover capital expenditures and debts associated with coal and nuclear, this could actually translate to the 90% reduction in its staff budget by 2018-19.

In practice, such a decrease in staffing at the department might not mean much in the near-term, given how vague the Tory manifesto was about climate change. However, in a long time to come, even if this government (or even the next one) wanted to firm up on energy and climate policy, they simply would not have enough qualified staff to do so – correcting that shortage would not occur overnight.

While the merits of person policy decisions can be contended, a wider trend is actually emerging. The government strategy appears anti-renewables and anti-energy efficiency, while simultaneously boosting oil and gas exploration (such as fracking). It all seems alarmingly from odds with fighting climate change; perhaps the Tories really are “getting rid of the green crap”.

This is a populist, short-term focused technique, which in the longer operate could hurt energy policy goals on energy effectiveness, energy security and household energy bills. It will make the UK’s emission reduction focuses on much harder to meet, and risks undermining the country’s standing worldwide in the run-up to the next UN climate change conference, due to be held in Paris in December.

Shortsighted Tory power policies could undo years of effort is republished with authorization from The Conversation