Shrug-worthy, disappointing, too slow, reactionary, lacking ambition, could-do-better: the scientist’s attitude to most UK politicians’ policy statements on reducing carbon emissions.
Today’s “low-carbon transition plan” looks different – although we could have done with it a lot earlier.
In a collection of four strategy documents which together proclaim themselves “the most systematic response to climate change of any major developed country”, the UK government plots out exactly how it plans to meet its legally binding targets for cutting carbon dioxide emissions.
Energy secretary Ed Miliband says that by 2020 he wants 40% of electricity to come from low-carbon sources: over 30% from renewables – overwhelmingly wind power, but also biomass, and tidal energy – and the rest from nuclear and carbon capture and storage. Heat and transport will also see vastly-boosted renewables contributions. By 2020, there will be 3,000 offshore wind turbines across the country and every home will have a smart meter. Every government department has been given its own carbon budget to follow. Thousands of ‘green jobs’ (undefined) will be created.
The ambition on paper is praiseworthy. It leaves only sizeable doubts about whether the government can match deeds to fine-sounding words – and whether they can persuade households and firms that they must pay increased costs on energy bills.
“Eventually the Government must move from analysis paralysis to doing and building," says Stuart Haszeldine, a geologist at the University of Edinburgh. “All the right plans are there, but it’s hard to believe that this is actually going to happen.”
A reminder: the British government has committed to a 34% cut on 1990 levels of carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 – a staging post along the way to an 80% cut by 2050.
Meanwhile it must also, under European commitments, ensure that 15% of the country’s total energy supply (electricity, heat and transport) comes from renewable sources by 2020. That proportion currently stands at a paltry 2.25%, which means a seven-fold increase is needed in little over a decade.
The policy documents lay out plans for boosting offshore and onshore wind (with new investment of up to £120 million); wave and tidal energy (£60 million); nuclear renewal (£15 million for a research centre combining the efforts of universities and nuclear manufacturers); increases in fuel efficiency and some money for electric vehicle infrastructure; a smarter electricity grid; clean energy ‘cash-back’ schemes to pay households and business for generating low-carbon electricity; and loans to encourage better home insulation. They also support carbon capture and storage, though add little new in that area.
“I am impressed. Until now, progress on transforming our energy system has been very slow. Decarbonizing Britain is going to require serious change and serious building, comparable to the challenges of the second world war. From what I’ve read of today’s publications, it seems that the government understand this and are now pushing much harder on the accelerator,” says David MacKay, the Cambridge University physicist who authored Sustainable Energy – without the hot air (essential reading).
Still, the UK remains far behind other countries, as both Haszeldine and the BBC’s environment correspondent Richard Black note. Sweden are decades ahead of the UK on home insulation standards; Germany have for years introduced feed-in tariffs like the government’s cash-back schemes for clean energy.
“The government speaks of being a leader in climate change – and in some senses it is – but from another standpoint, the energy transition plan is one giant catch-up exercise, and one that will be initiated during straitened financial times,” Black writes.
Image: word-cloud of the low-carbon transition strategy (created at www.wordle.net)