Time for action on low carbon strategy, business and unions tell Government
Peta Hodge
9th March 2009
Director general of the CBI Richard Lambert is one of a growing band who believes the Government now has the legislative framework for its climate change policy in place, and the time has come for action.
His message came in response to last week’s summit at which the Government set out its 'Low Carbon Industrial Strategy' and invited businesses, unions and environmental groups to make further submissions ahead of the publication of the final policy before the summer.
Although Mr Lambert expressed broad support for the way the Government had developed its policy so far, he said: “The Government’s job is to provide industry with the right set of regulations and incentives, and to create the investment climate that will encourage the enormous investment of private capital required to build a low carbon economy. This means consistency, clarity and certainty in the implementation of policy [...] The US is now moving out of the slow lane and into top gear in the race against climate change. The UK must show a greater sense of urgency if it is rise to the challenges and grasp the opportunities that lie ahead.”
The Government’s Low Carbon Industrial Strategy will aim for what it describes as ‘step changes’ in four key areas, namely: improved energy efficiency; the development of an energy infrastructure for a low carbon future; the establishment of the UK as a global leader in the development and production of low carbon vehicles; and the positioning of the UK as the best place to locate and develop a low carbon business by developing its skills, infrastructure, procurement, research and development.
Even before last week’s summit, the position of the TUC was that the success of the Low Carbon Industrial Strategy was in Government’s own hands.
Deputy general secretary Frances O'Grady said: 'Even without recession we would need decisive action to drive down carbon emissions [...] Regulation, Government grants and direct Government activity may have been unfashionable in the boom years, but they are the only way we can green the economy in the midst of bust.”
Speaking at the summit, business secretary Peter Mandelson acknowledged the potential for the low carbon economy to be central to the UK’s recovery from recession, but he said the Government’s Low Carbon Industrial Strategy will be “much more fundamental than that.
“This is about how the UK has to look in a decade's time. It is about a transformative shift in our economy, and the industrial and business opportunities that will come with that if we equip the UK to compete for them,” he said.
One pre-requisite for this low carbon economy was highlighted last week when the Electricity Networks Strategy Group (ENSG) published a report identifying the need for £4.7 billion of investment to upgrade the electricity grid to accommodate new power generation – including around 30 per cent from renewable sources – by 2020.
In what will be the largest single expansion since the early 1960s, up to 1,000 km of new cables will be needed to ensure new renewables and nuclear power stations can be connected to the electricity grid.
The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), which hopes to play a major part in this expansion of the renewables sector, was another organisation to couple its endorsement of the Government’s Low Carbon Industrial Strategy with a warning.
Maria McCaffery, BWEA chief executive, said she welcomed the Prime Minister’s endorsement at last week’s summit of the enormous potential of renewable energy to create employment in the UK, but warned that policy makers should not to repeat the mistakes of the early phase of development, when the UK was not agile enough in securing jobs in this sector domestically.
"We welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement, which chimes with what the BWEA has been saying for years – it is now important for the Government to follow up words with actions,” she said.