Conservative conference: pick up the pace, or pick up the pieces?

Oliver Hayes

27 September 2013

Greg Barker, the UK's Energy and Climate Change minister, has been doing the media rounds today in response to the IPCC report.

Barker said on the BBC's Daily Politics show (and presumably elsewhere - he's been almost omnipresent) that "Government has a record of solid action [on climate change], the rest of the world needs to pick up the pace".

The second half of that is uncontroversial. Friends of the Earth agrees that all nations need to join together to tackle the unprecedented challenge of curbing global emissions to avoid the worst impacts of a warming planet.

But you can hardly expect to have any credibility calling for this on the international stage without some evidence that you're stepping up at home. The former diplomat and UK's chief climate change negotiator, John Ashton CBE, said as much in a highly revealing speech hosted by Friends of the Earth earlier this year.

And that's where I take issue with Barker's statement. I don't agree that this Government has a record of solid action on climate change. (Neither, recently, did a collection of seven leading UK environmental charities)

Shackling green investment

The Government's point blank refusal to set a 2030 decarbonisation target in the Energy Bill - driven by the Chancellor, George Osborne - risks jobs and low-carbon growth in the UK as much as it risks locking us into a high carbon future.

It's stubborn to the point of sticking your fingers in your ear and shouting "LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" when you ignore hundreds of organisations, big-hitter investors, and even some of the biggest donors to your own political party and plough on regardless, George.

Instead of setting us on course to carbon-free electricity, Osborne has opened up the countryside to the frackers and announced plans to build up to 40 new gas-fired power stations - something the Committee on Climate Change say should be "plan Z" and even the CBI think isn't wise.

Worse still is the Government's record on energy efficiency. Greg has long championed his "flagship" Green Deal retrofit programme, which set out to "help households and businesses improve their energy efficiency, thereby reducing their energy consumption and helping them to save money".

So far it's been about as successful as a chocolate kettle.

Green flop

Just twelve - TWELVE! - houses have had improvements carried out under the scheme since its January launch. Shocking communications (Friends of the Earth and many others urged Ministers not to call it the "Green Deal", for starters), a lack of trust in the companies carrying out the works, complex financing arrangements, and, above all, sky-high interest rates attached to the loans have all contributed to the flop.

But no-one should be carping about this failure. It's a travesty that our housing stock is so poorly insulated that 4.5 million households have to choose between having the radiators on and keeping fed. And of course this has serious carbon consequences - energy that leaks out through walls and windows is responsible for more than 25 per cent of total UK emissions.

Finding a way to reverse this would be the most effective, and cheapest, way to slash our carbon output, would help households facing rising bills, and would offer a healthy boost to jobs and the economy.

And since Ed Miliband's feather-ruffling pledge to freeze gas and electricity prices for 20 months if he is elected, energy bills - and how to curb them - has been the talking point in UK politics.

Miliband's announcement has saturated the political terrain since Tuesday, so the Conservatives will probably be looking to respond - noisily - at their annual conference this weekend.

What might this response look like? It's no secret that Osborne's cross-hairs are never far from all things green. But if he decides to take aim and pull the trigger, he'll be making a catastrophic mistake: green measures are not the main reason bills are soaring - increasingly expensive fossil fuels, are.

But of course if Osborne really wants to bring down bills (and steal a march on Miliband in the process) he should announce massive investment in energy efficiency, long known to be the quickest and most cost-effective way to bring down Bills and curb emissions.

Green for the chop?

Based on past performance, a green attack by the chancellor would - sadly - be no great surprise. So it's worth considering what this might look like.

The bit of "green spending" Osborne most directly controls is the Carbon Price Floor (CPF), a scheme that augments the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Friends of the Earth and others don't think the CPF is perfect by any means, but there's a no-brainer improvement sitting right under the Chancellor's nose.

Currently the money Government collects from the CPF and ETS drifts anonymously into Treasury coffers. It's not a huge amount at the moment, but it's expected to grow - over the next 15 years this will add up to £63bn.

If this cash was recycled to households it could help to insulate millions of homes and lower energy bills.

Despite the elegance of the solution - funding environmental improvements through green taxes - I can't help thinking Osborne will be looking for ways to further implement his infamous 2011 pledge to cut carbon "no slower, but also no faster" than other countries in Europe.

And that brings me back to Barker's statement earlier today. Does "the rest of the world needs to pick up the pace" come with the implied threat that if they don't, the UK will row back on its climate commitment?

At a time of climate crisis - and when gas prices have driven energy bills up and up - the Government must resist this temptation. It must instead use carbon tax revenue to boost massively its failing energy saving policies, ease the pressure on hard-pressed households and put an end to the scandal of fuel poverty at the same time.

That would be a fine place to start in an effort to convince people that it is serious about "picking up the pace", rather than being slavishly devoted to a curious brand of environmentally and fiscally short-sighted policy that we've christened Osbornomics.