The Return of Europe's "Dirty Man"?
The abolition of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and the folding of its functions into two separate departments -- energy into what is essentially a revamped industry department (the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) and climate change back into environment -- has garnered negative comments from various green groups. Client Earth, Greenpeace, the New Economics Foundation, Friends of the Earth, the Green Party (the list could go on and on) claim that removal of the words "climate change" all by itself sends a signal that the UK government thinks the issue isn't important, and in any case that merging energy and climate issues with other policy concerns means that they will inevitably lose traction. Others, such as WWF and Nicholas Stern (author of a substantial report on the economic costs of climate change during the Blair era), think that business could help drive the climate change agenda, although that seems to me unlikely. As far as business is concerned, climate change is an externality: something which society and government must pay to rectify, not their shareholders and customers (even though their shareholders and customers, and their yacht-buying boards of directors, will suffer from it just as much as everyone else).
And as for handing energy policy back to a department whose officials have a consistent track record of undermining renewable energy in favour of expensive nuclear power -- not to mention officials who designed the ludicrous "contracts for difference" energy contracts that will hand the owners and operators of Hinkley C (if it's ever built) a sum equal to four times the price of non-nuclear energy for thirty years or more -- well, throwing up one's hands in despair is one response. Another would be for all companies which manufacture renewable generation plant -- solar, wind and hydro -- to relocate, to Scotland, Ireland or continental Europe, and leave England to its energyless fate, reliant on Chinese money to build its nuclear power stations and interconnectors from continental European operators who will charge the earth for whatever power they deign to sell us and laugh like drains as their balance sheets grow fat beyond their wildest dreams.
Greg Clark, the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, is apparently a greenish Conservative and claims to be "thrilled" to be "delivering affordable, clean energy and tackling climate change" (although in a previous incarnation as Communities and Local Government minister he was responsible for ripping up what his predecessor Eric Pickles had left of the planning system, and thus restraints on the wrecking of the UK's environment). However, what he says or thinks will count for nothing against "the antediluvian atmosphere of the Treasury": new Chancellor Philip Hammond once said of climate change (when still Foreign Secretary) that "There may now be more risk in being left behind than there is in taking the lead" and that "It is increasingly clear that the economy of the future will be a low carbon economy [and] by stimulating greater innovation and efficiency, climate policies will increase our economic competitiveness", but it's a racing certainty that this won't last much beyond his first engagements with the deregulatory, tax avoidance-promoting officials who lead his department. Indeed, as one commentator points out, the appointments to Theresa May's cabinet amount to "a struggle pitching free-market red tape slashers against those backing a clean, green economy as the UK’s best long term bet", with victory most likely to go to the former rather than the latter.
In the 1970s and 1980s, before EU legislation forced it to start cleaning up its act, the UK was known as "the dirty man of Europe" thanks to its levels of air pollution, acid rain caused by the emissions from its coal-fired power stations, and the discharge of raw sewage onto its beaches. Outside the EU, with a government fixated on satisfying business interests first, it looks as though we shall be again.
And as for handing energy policy back to a department whose officials have a consistent track record of undermining renewable energy in favour of expensive nuclear power -- not to mention officials who designed the ludicrous "contracts for difference" energy contracts that will hand the owners and operators of Hinkley C (if it's ever built) a sum equal to four times the price of non-nuclear energy for thirty years or more -- well, throwing up one's hands in despair is one response. Another would be for all companies which manufacture renewable generation plant -- solar, wind and hydro -- to relocate, to Scotland, Ireland or continental Europe, and leave England to its energyless fate, reliant on Chinese money to build its nuclear power stations and interconnectors from continental European operators who will charge the earth for whatever power they deign to sell us and laugh like drains as their balance sheets grow fat beyond their wildest dreams.
Greg Clark, the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, is apparently a greenish Conservative and claims to be "thrilled" to be "delivering affordable, clean energy and tackling climate change" (although in a previous incarnation as Communities and Local Government minister he was responsible for ripping up what his predecessor Eric Pickles had left of the planning system, and thus restraints on the wrecking of the UK's environment). However, what he says or thinks will count for nothing against "the antediluvian atmosphere of the Treasury": new Chancellor Philip Hammond once said of climate change (when still Foreign Secretary) that "There may now be more risk in being left behind than there is in taking the lead" and that "It is increasingly clear that the economy of the future will be a low carbon economy [and] by stimulating greater innovation and efficiency, climate policies will increase our economic competitiveness", but it's a racing certainty that this won't last much beyond his first engagements with the deregulatory, tax avoidance-promoting officials who lead his department. Indeed, as one commentator points out, the appointments to Theresa May's cabinet amount to "a struggle pitching free-market red tape slashers against those backing a clean, green economy as the UK’s best long term bet", with victory most likely to go to the former rather than the latter.
In the 1970s and 1980s, before EU legislation forced it to start cleaning up its act, the UK was known as "the dirty man of Europe" thanks to its levels of air pollution, acid rain caused by the emissions from its coal-fired power stations, and the discharge of raw sewage onto its beaches. Outside the EU, with a government fixated on satisfying business interests first, it looks as though we shall be again.