Archived press release

Fears over carbon emissions as IPC opens for business

1 March 2010

Government plans to fast-track major infrastructure projects such as power stations and large waste incinerators threaten efforts to tackle climate change and undermine local democracy, Friends of the Earth warned today (Monday 1 March 2010).

The warning comes as the new Infrastructure Planning Commission [IPC] - the body created by the Government to make decisions on applications for nationally significant projects - opens its doors to applications.

The IPC will make its decisions in accordance with policies set out by the Government in a number of National Policy Statements - which have yet to be finally approved.  But Friends of the Earth has major concerns about the draft National Policy Statements on energy, which it calls "fundamentally flawed" and wrote to the Government in January warning that it could face a judicial review unless they are significantly changed.

Among the concerns raised by the environmental campaigning charity is the failure to instruct the IPC to consider the carbon impacts of applications that come before it. Friends of the Earth says it is essential that the IPC and Committee on Climate Change, the Government's official climate change advisor, work together to ensure that our energy sector rapidly reduces its carbon impact in line with legally-binding UK carbon budgets.

Friends of the Earth also says the new fast-track process does not safeguard communities' rights to be heard - it is extremely technical and does not give them a meaningful role in the decision making process.

Friends of the Earth's Executive Director Andy Atkins said:

"Ministers are proposing to allow this new body to give the go-ahead to major infrastructure projects without considering their impact on climate change and the UK's legally-binding carbon budgets.

"The planning system should be used to help cut UK emissions and tackle climate change - not ignore it.

"And it is astounding that the Government has set up this unelected body to fast-track major planning projects - local concerns will be steamrollered and communities will have little say in major decisions that will affect their area.

"Friends of the Earth has warned the Government that it could face a legal challenge unless it changes the proposals in its draft energy National Planning Statements to curb global warming."

Notes to editors

1. Friends of the Earth wrote to the Government in January raising a number of issues about its draft energy NPS. As well as its failure to consider climate change Friends of the Earth concerns include:
• wrongly instructing the IPC to assume that all forms of energy infrastructure are 'needed' - which threatens to lock the UK into high carbon energy infrastructure;
• Failing to follow European legal requirements on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA);
• Failing to consult properly.
The Government has not replied to the legal questions raised
More info: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/nps_22012010.html

2. The IPC has published a list of 22 'anticipated projects' that it expects to be asked to decide on: http://infrastructure.independent.gov.uk/?page_id=202

3. The IPC has no duty to consider the impacts that proposed projects may have on climate change. One of the first applications is expected to be for a large waste incinerator, but in the scoping report which has been prepared there is no mention of the expected carbon emissions from its operation and the IPC has not asked the applicant to provide data on its carbon footprint:
http://infrastructure.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/rookery-report.pdf (19MB)

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust