A leaked letter from Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd, seen by The Ecologist shows that the Government’s public position that we are going to meet our legally binding renewables target – is not the truth. On the contrary the government clearly believes we will miss the target and Rudd discusses various options for making up the shortfall – none of which appear to be viable, by her own assessment. The one option not discussed is the reinstatement of support for renewable energy… instead Rudd appears to pin her hopes on the support for renewable heat not also being cut.
Rudd also makes clear that the government intended to continue to deceive the public on this issue:
“Publicly we are clear that the UK continues to make progress to meet the target”
One option Rudd discusses for making up the shortfall, to meet the target is to pay other countries to build renewables for us… there’s no indication at all that this would be cheaper than supporting them in the UK (why would it be, the UK has Europe’s best and most economic wind resource), and given the reason for the cuts was cost (we can’t afford renewable energy apparently), you’d think that cost ought to be a prominent feature of any option discussion.
We’d not just be incurring extra cost by doing this, we’d be exporting jobs and industry… It all seems a little unthought through.
Rudd acknowledges the need to meet the target and that we will fail. This has clearly been caused by the recent cuts, which are driven by the false claim that we can’t afford more renewables – the cheapest energy available to us.
It rather looks like DECC are panicking, faced with the inevitable consequences of the ideologically driven renewables cull – Plan A.
Plan B appears to be either a) pay fines or b) pay another country to do the job for us – both options are short sighted and economically illiterate.
When is somebody going to take this government to task on its climate vandalism as Dutch and Pakistani people have with their governments.
I have spent 5 years of my life and every penny that I have developing a renewable energy product, a product that with technoligy partner Siemens we aim to release to the UK market in Jan 2016, will they be a market in the UK, probabily not as our governments plan is to buy carbon credits from our German friends to the detriment of our own industry, nonsense.
The explanation for this debacle is #FrackerCameron and his official #Fracking Environmental Advisors
Wow! I am surprised that I am surprised at the lying and deceit of this government.
Here we are trying to save the planet AND lower energy bills while our government sells our future to the chinese nuclear, quadrilla fracking and more fossil fuels.
This needs to be covered by mainstream press.
Up the people, up the power of the people and save the planet!
Mark
Of course, if all else fails, the tories will simply change the law to remove any targets. They have taken the public as fools and mostly been proved right.
Renewable exported? Production of domestic solar panels seem already to have been exported. We were offered panels made in China, Germany and Canada. But with feed in tariff cuts no one is going to buying these anyway.
What more can be said about the abysmal record of this government than what has already been said. We are in a dire situation in terms of climate change and the rate of increase of atmospheric pollution and I would expect the people in positions of power to be showing leadership in the battle to save our environment. Instead they are working with big industry to ensure that those with the wealth and power, particularly the fossil fuel companies, can continue to cling on at the top at the expense of all other living things on our planet. The system needs to change and very soon.