Energy Policy

Why the government’s 2050 net zero carbon target is not fit for purpose. 2050 puts the state’s responsibility for action way too far back — and it’s based on the most conservative estimates too. We need to address this as what it is: a crisis, argues IAN SINCLAIR. Parliament declaring a climate emergency and the government implementing a 2050 net zero target are huge wins for Britain’s environmental movement. However, speaking to the Morning Star in June 2019, Extinction Rebellion spokesperson Rupert Read called the CCC report which recommended the 2050 net zero target, “essentially dead on arrival.” And in September 2019 Ed Miliband said “2050 isn’t the radical position and now it’s seen as a conservative ‘small c’ position.” So what are the problems with the 2050 net zero target? First, the CCC’s 2050 target is derived from the October 2018 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on 1.5°C — the maximum increase in temperature the 189 signatories of the 2016 UN Paris climate agreement pledged to limit global warming to. However, as many climate experts have noted, the IPCC tends to be conservative in its predictions. “This is simply due to its structure,” Dr Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam University noted in 2014. “The IPCC report will contain only things that a whole group of scientists have agreed upon on a kind of consensus process. This kind of agreement tends to be the lowest common denominator.” He noted that sea level rise in the last two decades “has overtaken the speed of the upper range of previous projections of sea level of the IPCC.” Writing in Business Green in May 2019, Will Dawson from Forum For The Future explained the ramifications of this: “The CCC is therefore using scenarios that are likely far too optimistic. Emissions have to be cut much faster than they assumed to keep to 1.5°C.” Second, the CCC admits the 2050 target, “if replicated across the world,” would deliver only a greater than 50 per cent chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C — reckless odds when you are talking about the fate of hundreds of millions of people. Indeed, Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, recently stated: “The problem is the framing the CCC has for net zero is already far removed from what is needed to meet our Paris commitments.” A positive step would be the adoption of an earlier net zero target date. Both Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College London and Tim Jackson, professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey, back a net zero target of 2030. Under Corbyn’s leadership a Green New Deal with a target date of 2030 was approved at the 2019 annual Labour Party conference (though didn’t fully make it into the party’s December 2019 general election manifesto). Impressively, in July Ed Miliband, now the shadow business and energy secretary, confirmed he backs the 2030 target date.

Morning Star 26th Sept 2020 read more »

A huge breakthrough in climate policy was signalled this week when China announced it will reduce its emissions to net zero by 2060. It’s a potentially game-changing leap, following in the footsteps of the UK’s existing 2050 net zero target. But promises are easy, actions are more challenging – and the UK has been steadily slipping from its climate targets. It’s consistently promised tougher policies for the future, but for a few years, Britain’s long-term climate strategy has lain buried in fog. We know the net zero carbon destination point, but we can’t yet see how the government intends to get there. The National Infrastructure Strategy will lay out plans for government to spend £100bn on big projects. Past spending might have been dominated by new roads, but the government has gone quiet over its £27bn roads programme. Heat is a Cinderella problem – more than a third of UK carbon emissions are created by heat production. Ministers are being pressed to announce a date when gas home boilers will be phased out. Industries want incentives for low-carbon heat, and Mr Johnson’s UN remarks suggest he has been persuaded by the well-funded lobby trumpeting the role of hydrogen in heating and some transport, although that looks expensive. The nuclear giant EDF is suggesting that nukes might be harnessed to generate heat, but there’s scepticism about this. Mr Johnson told UNGA the UK could become the “Saudi Arabia of wind”. Offshore wind no longer needs subsidy but progress is being delayed by a host of other factors, including their impact on birds, or fishing. It does need help. To the dismay of some green campaigners, Mr Johnson also committed himself to nuclear power – although it’s not clear if that means the behemoth Sizewell C, or multiples of mini-nukes called SMRs. Perhaps we’ll have both. But neither will happen unless the PM agrees government-backed funding. The PM also declared himself for “evangelist” to the carbon capture technology that catches CO2 emissions from industry, albeit at a heavy cost. He said he’d previously been sceptical. How will this be funded?

BBC 26th Sept 2020 read more »

Free parking and a VAT cut on electric cars are being considered by ministers in efforts to outlaw the sale of new combustion engine vehicles within ten years. According to a report commissioned by the Department for Transport, a series of “upfront incentives” were required to boost the number of electric vehicles being sold. Additional financial support to buy a battery-powered car was “one of the most effective and popular levers” which could be introduced by the Government, the report found.

iNews 26th Sept 2020 read more »

Despite home charging being the best option for the vast majority of usage, sometimes we have to leave that comfort zone and travel beyond the range of our EV (although range will increase in EV models over the next few years, easing most ‘range anxiety’). It might be for work, to visit friends and family (when that’s again allowed) or get away from it all on a staycation. Gridserve, a start-up that has plans to build 100 ‘Electric Forecourts’ around the country over the next five years. The first of these is at a site at Braintree, Essex, not far from Stansted Airport. Not perhaps the most obvious location for such a pilot scheme – London has the highest number of EV registrations – but it makes a lot of sense to Gridserve CEO, Toddington Harper, when describing the concept behind the project. He said: “This is designed as a public charging solution, to be able to charge any type of electric vehicle, as fast as that vehicle would allow, in a setting that’s suited for people. They can turn up to charge with all the convenience you would get from a modern petrol forecourt.

Telegraph 27th Sept 2020 read more »

Armitt says UK nuclear is on hold until funding model is clear. It is “impossible to see” how new nuclear power stations will be developed in the UK until a framework for financing them is in place, National Infrastructure Sir John Armitt has warned.

Utility Week 24th Sept 2020 read more »

Boris Johnson has signalled he is keen for the UK to make a “big bet” on wind power, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS) as part of the government’s strategy for building a net zero economy by 2050, as he urged global government to step up their climate efforts ahead of COP26. Speaking ahead of a raft of world leaders during a virtual UN climate action roundtable yesterday, the Prime Minister once again trumpeted his enthusiasm for cutting edge clean technologies, as he reiterated his hope of delivering a green recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. Building back greener was “the name of the game” for the UK, he said, as he touted a “green industrial revolution” as the solution to both the climate crisis and the economic fallout from the pandemic, a pathway he said could create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the UK. It comes amid increasing pressure for the government to set out its net zero plans across a range of challenging areas of the economy, including heating, energy, transport and infrastructure, and Johnson today stoked hopes that a host of critical net zero policy papers could finally emerge before the end of 2020. The PM is also expected to make climate change a feature of his speech during the UN General Assembly this weekend, while recent reports have suggested he is gearing up to announced a number of new domestic climate efforts this autumn.

Business Green 25th Sept 2020 read more »

[There is] a fraud at the heart of the government’s pledge for net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The clue is in the word “net”. “Gross zero” means the UK no longer releases any greenhouse gases. “Net zero” means we can still burn carbon so long as we remove an equivalent amount. It’s a perfectly reasonable assumption but the volumes involved are not. Last year’s Committee on Climate Change report, the inspiration for the government’s “net zero” legislation, said that the UK would need to clean 175 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent from the air every year on top of about 300 million tonnes of emissions reductions, from 2017 levels. For context, Britain produced 435 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2019. Hydrogen should play a big role in the UK’s zero carbon future, the report added, but it would be a particularly intensive user of this “carbon capture and storage” (CCS) technology because the only economically feasible way of creating it is by burning natural gas. The hitch here, and it’s a big one, is that CCS technology barely exists. In fact, as the Committee on Climate Change said last year, the UK “is yet to get started” and “global progress has been slow”. According to the Global CCS Institute, the world’s total capacity for capture and storage was 40 million tonnes last year, including “projects under construction”. That means Britain alone, which accounts for 2-3 per cent of human-induced global warming to date, needs four and a half times existing global CCS capacity to reach its goal. Right now, it’s a fantasy and one perpetuated by every signatory to the 2015 Paris accords. Each commitment is based on technology that does not exist today. The public finances equivalent might be promising to halve the national debt in a decade by delivering 10 per cent GDP growth a year. If the chancellor tried that, he’d be laughed out of the chamber.

Times 26th Sept 2020 read more »

David Dobereiner, (Author of The End of the Street: Sustainable Growth within Natural Limits), George Monbiot’s article (Electric cars won’t solve our pollution problems – Britain needs a total transport rethink, 23 September) is spot on. As a retired architect and urban designer, I was particularly taken by the last section where Monbiot states: “Fundamentally this is not a vehicle problem but an urban design problem.” His account of the “15-minute city” being carried out by the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, is the way all big cities should go. By re-localising and bringing together all the workers and residents in each neighbourhood, with their own commons at the centre and weekly assembly meetings practising participatory democracy, big steps can be taken towards implementing the kind of circular economics, with zero waste, that the world so urgently needs. Separating pedestrian from vehicular traffic is a basic requirement. One way this can be achieved is using main bus routes to define new communities. Within that border selected roads can be made traffic-free in such a way as allows all within the boundary to reach the central commons without encountering a single car, truck or bus.

Guardian 25th Sept 2020 read more »

Free parking and a VAT cut on electric cars are being considered by ministers as Boris Johnson prepares to ban the sale of new combustion engine models within a decade. A report commissioned by the Department for Transport said that a series of “upfront incentives” were needed to drive up the sale of new electric vehicles. The study said additional financial support to buy a battery-powered car was “one of the most effective and popular levers” the government could adopt. It suggested that cutting the VAT rate for electric cars and, in turn, penalising those who buy petrol or diesel models was popular with potential buyers. It said that other incentives, including free use of public car parking spaces, could have a “positive impact” at least in the short to medium term. Some councils already offer either free or cheaper parking for electric vehicles.

Times 26th Sept 2020 read more »

Below I reveal how BEIS has just disowned a chapter promoting nuclear in the UK by one of its own nuclear scientists. Read on… You wait for a major energy policy speech, and three come along at once! This week has been designated “Climate Week” by the United Nations, to co-incide with the Annual General Assembly meeting, usually held in New York, but this year due to the global Coronacrisis, ministers have made their contributions live via video-link. COP26 President and Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Alok Sharma, used his slot to announce a series of new climate commitments.

David Lowry’s Blog 22nd Jan 2020 read more »

Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he wants to make a “big bet” on renewables, turning the UK into the “Saudi Arabia” of wind power. Speaking via video link to a climate roundtable discussion at the UN in New York, Mr Johnson said the country held “extraordinary potential for wind”. He said the UK should embrace a range of new technologies to achieve its goal of net zero emissions by 2050. Mr Johnson reiterated his government’s pledge to “build back greener” after the Covid-19 pandemic, through a green industrial revolution. He promised to deliver thousands of new jobs in the process. As regards wind power, Mr Johnson said: “We’ve got huge, huge gusts of wind going around the north of our country – Scotland. Quite extraordinary potential we have for wind.” On the question of new technologies, the Prime Minister also said he wanted the UK to take the lead in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, in which greenhouse gas emissions are captured from sources such as power stations and then stored underground.

BBC 24th Sept 2020 read more »

Campaigners are calling for VAT to be reformed to help both accelerate the roll out of green home upgrades and reward positive consumer action to reduce waste. In a new report titled Added Value: Improving the Environmental and Social Impact of UK VAT, think tank Green Alliance today argues that the current five per cent rate of VAT on heating gas disproportionately benefits richer households, which typically use more fuel to heat larger homes.

Business Green 25th Sept 2020 read more »

In Hackney three low-traffic neighbourhoods have been established, numerous other roads have been closed to though traffic and cycleways and pavements across the borough have been improved. “We are trying to rebuild a greener Hackney through quieter, safer streets,” said councillor Jon Burke, who is leading the project. “It isn’t an easy process, but with among the highest road casualty and air pollution rates in the country, it is an absolutely necessary one.” From Leicester to Leeds, Brighton to Bristol, it is a picture that is being replicated in cities across the UK. Earlier in the pandemic the Scottish government announced £10m to create pop-up walking and cycling routes, while in Greater Manchester council leaders have given more space for people walking and cycling, including the pedestrianisation of part of Deansgate in the city centre. But the changes have also provoked a fierce backlash from some drivers who complain the schemes have been imposed without proper consultation, claiming they increase traffic on surrounding routes, and hinder their ability to drive where they want, when they want. A Guardian analysis of Transport for London consultations on cycle schemes before the pandemic revealed they were often withdrawn or altered following consistent objections from Conservative politicians, taxi drivers’ organisations and residents’ associations in wealthy areas.

Guardian 24th Sept 2020 read more »

Chinese and European researchers have identified the source of almost one-fifth of all the world’s carbon emissions. They come from the supply chains of giant multinational companies. Not only does global business export investment, it exports carbon dioxide emissions as well. And the big players play it really big. The US business Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, with 11,500 stores in 28 countries, in 2016 generated more emissions abroad than the whole of Germany’s foreign-owned retail sector. That year Coca-Cola’s global emissions matched those from the entire foreign food-and-drink industry in China. Total SA’s foreign affiliates generated more than a tenth of the total emissions of France. Altogether, the multinational giants accounted for 18.7% of global emissions.

Climate News Network 25th Sept 2020 read more »

Stephen Cirell: At the beginning of September, the Climate Assembly appointed by the Government reported its findings. The question it was asked was how the UK could get to net zero carbon emissions in pursuance of its local obligations contained in the Climate Change Act 2008. It has now published a detailed report of its findings, which makes interesting reading. The Assembly’s report therefore provides the first substantive piece of evidence about what the British people think in relation to reaching these legal targets. In this context it should be emphasised, of course, that the question was not whether we should be doing this but how we should reach those targets.

Current 24th Sept 2020 read more »

Few countries are living up to their promises of a “green recovery” from the coronavirus crisis, with hundreds of billions of dollars likely to be spent on economic rescue packages that increase greenhouse gas emissions, research has found. The US is planning nearly $3tn in spending with few environmental safeguards attached, and little money going to low-carbon efforts, while rolling back regulations that protect nature and the environment. Of the total US stimulus of about $2.98tn, only about $39bn is going towards green projects, according to the analysis. Among the world’s 20 biggest economies, only the UK, Germany and France as individual countries, and the EU as a whole, are planning for a green recovery in which the benefits to the climate and nature outweigh the negative impacts, according to an analysis, entitled the Greenness of Stimulus Index, by Vivid Economics as part of the Finance for Biodiversity initiative.

Guardian 23rd Sept 2020 read more »