Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP
West Edinburgh Times (challenge of climate change)
Last month I wrote about the two big challenges we face: climate change and security of cleaner energy supplies at affordable prices. In the Energy Review concluded this month I announced proposals to reduce the demand for energy, to secure a mix of clean, low carbon energy sources and to streamline the planning process for energy projects.
Our approach is firstly to save energy. Even at home there’s lots of scope for greater efficiency. For example, leaving products on standby consumes between 6-10% of all household electricity and 85% of the electricity used by your video recorder is consumed while on standby, that’s £150m worth of electricity across the country.
Further proposals include driving the least efficient domestic appliances and consumer electronics out of the market, transforming energy supply companies into champions of emissions reduction and measures to incentivise carbon savings for large organisations like supermarkets, hotel chains and large local authorities.
The proportion of electricity generated from renewables like wind farms needs to increase substantially so the Renewables Obligation will increase five-fold to 20%. And we are locking in the Renewables Obligation by requiring 20% of energy to come from renewables so nuclear won’t be allowed to divert resources away from it.
Renewables gets a subsidy today which will reach over £1 billion a year by 2010. Nuclear will not get a subsidy.
Critically, the planning system needs to be streamlined. We’ll act to ensure energy companies, whether seeking to build gas storage facilities, wind farms or any other kind of energy installation, are not faced with costly uncertainties and delay. Local concerns about specific sites must be taken into consideration but the right balance has to be struck with the national need for our vital energy infrastructure. The Scottish Executive is reviewing the planning system to speed up the decision-making process here in Scotland. Scotland has about ¾ of all the UK’s wind potential so I welcome this review as a means of getting renewable energy, like wind farms, built more quicker.
Together, our proposals would result by 2020 in a reduction in annual carbon emissions of 19-25 million tonnes of carbon, the equivalent of the annual emissions of Austria or Greece. This will be a significant step towards making real progress in emissions reductions and we’ll be on a path to achieving our goal of cutting the UK’s carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. The measures will also reduce our over-dependence on imported gas and will help bring forward substantial new investment in generating the electricity on which we all depend.
