Posted for Lucas Laursen

President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and former BP chief Lord Browne will call on the British government to intervene more aggressively in the energy market in a speech tonight at Cardiff University, reports the Guardian.

Browne told the Observer earlier this month that “Pinning all your hopes on the European Union ETS [emissions trading scheme] and carbon trading is wrong.”

Browne was an early supporter of emissions trading and spearheaded an internal emissions trading program at BP in the 1990s. In the EU scheme, governments dole out a fixed quantity of emissions permits to energy companies, who can then trade the permits on the open market, permitting more efficient companies to sell their extra emissions capacity to less efficient ones.

But today, low energy prices and a surfeit of government-issued emission permits mean that it is easy for energy firms to avoid any serious constraints on their emissions.

Browne will propose government intervention comparable to that used to prop up oil and gas extraction in the North Sea 30 years ago, but with the new goal of building renewable, clean energy infrastructure such as wind farms. Wind farm projects are at risk because of tight credit, but Browne will advocate that the government should nudge banks in which it owns shares to open credit lines for clean energy projects.

At BP, Browne oversaw company plans to create a carbon capture and storage facility at Peterhead in Scotland. But the plan subsequently foundered, with industry figures blaming the government’s failure to commit to subsidizing such projects.

“I remain convinced that the market is the most effective delivery unit available to society,” Browne will say in his speech tonight, “But the market will need a new strategic direction and a new framework of rules, laid down by government.”

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