2013 will be the year energy management grows up

The Government continues to claim that it is delivering certainty to potential investors in low carbon technology, while these selfsame investors continue to say they don't have it.

The new Energy Bill and the Finance Bill 2013 all contain reams of assurances or regulations intended to balance the competing requirements of the two wings of the Coalition. This is represented in Westminster shorthand by Osborne, Energy Minister John Hayes and Environment Secretary Owen Patersen and 100 or so back-bench MPs on the one hand, and Greg Barker plus many Lib-Dem MPs on the other hand. Energy Secretary Ed Davey leans towards the latter rather than the former grouping, but manages to defend DECC's turf at least some of the time against the parsimonious tendency of the Treasury.

I'm sorry, I'll rephrase that: the above two documents are intended to balance the competing requirements of keeping the lights on for the UK, improving energy security and combating climate change.

Like the resolution called The Doha Gateway Package, which came out of the latest UNFCCC climate talks (vague ideas to do little until 2015), they represent both a victory for business-as-usual and a beanfest for legions of accountants and consultants who will be needed to interpret them for everyone else. In failing to tackle the dangers revealed by the latest evidence of the rate of climate change, they will satisfy no one but these players.

As the world races to increasingly certain climate disaster later this century, governments' payoffs to the bankers to compensate them for the mistakes they themselves made five years ago, mean that they have a plausible excuse not to cough up the mere 1% of global GDP required to ameliorate and mitigate the worst excesses of climate change.

Even as Chancellor George Osborne simplifies the Carbon Reduction Commitment, for the benefit of businesses affected by it, he introduces even more complex rules, governing the Carbon Price Support (CPS), Climate Change Levy (CCL), Carbon Price Floor (CPF), Capacity Payments and Feed-in Tariffs with Contracts for Difference, terms only civil servants could have dreamed up.

And this is after business complained that an earlier version of the Bill was too complicated.

The Gas Strategy promises support for gas extraction but gives no support for a new gas power station.

As I prophesised at the beginning of this year, the prognosis for concrete action on the construction of a new nuclear power station is still unclear, a year later, despite approval being granted by the Health and Safety Executive for NNB GenCo's European Pressurised Water Reactor design, because no one knows from where the money to pay for it will come.

Offshore wind power remains a reasonably safe bet, but only for turbines erected before 2018, when the Renewables Obligation gives way to the carbon price floor. And no one knows yet how that will work, because the price of carbon insists on staying frustratingly low.

All of which means that at the end of 2012, hopes are pinned on the one set of actions that is easier and cheaper to attain than any of the above. This has been a dark horse, largely ignored by government for decades, but now racing up on the outside with a chance to clinch a win, if the imaginative proposals in a recent consultation document are implemented.

I'm talking about energy efficiency of course. Demand reduction is already included in the Energy Bill's Capacity Market, but the suggestion of businesses and individuals being given premium payments for each kilowatt–hour saved by installing energy-efficient equipment are the centrepoint of last November's proposals for reducing energy demand, published by DECC.

The payments would work in a similar way to feed-in tariffs, but instead of being paid for generating renewable electricity, bill-payers would be paid for not consuming electricity, a solution that is, paradoxically, cheaper for energy companies than building new generators. It was first pioneered by Californian utility Pacific Gas and Electric in the 1970s.

The consultation contains other exciting ideas: an energy supplier obligation for the non-domestic sector to encourage energy companies to insulate business premises, similar to the Energy Company Obligation in the domestic sector, and financial incentives to encourage the replacement of out of date equipment like motors, boilers and fridges with new, more efficient versions.

Financiers say they are seeking certainty from Government. The CBI complains at the length of time it is taking for policies to become law. The Federation of Small Businesses and the manufacturers’ organisation, the EEF, complain about carbon taxes.

But investing in energy efficiency has always been able to provide certainty. Marginal abatement cost curves of energy measures, like those provided by DECC, McKinsey, Mott MacDonald or the Committee on Climate Change, consistently put it up front, on the left, below the line. Sure, different measures have different the internal rates of return, and they are dependent on future energy prices and inflation rates. Yet this is familiar territory for business.

It's just that energy management has not so far attracted the attention of senior executives. But from now on it must and will increasingly do so, especially if these proposals, which we should all back, are made law.

The absolute conclusion is: we can wait forever for government to act, and when it does it will never satisfy each and every one of us. But the logic of energy management, correctly applied, will always yield investor certainty. It will save carbon, save money, and create jobs.

Doha wins 'damage aid' for poor countries

For the first time, developing countries have won recognition of the danger they face from climate change, securing a promise from developing countries that they will receive funding to repair the "loss and damage" incurred.

US negotiators fought hard against this proposal and made sure no term implying legal liability was used, to avoid the possibility of litigation; the money will instead be described as aid. It is already being called 'damage aid'.

But “climate finance is not charity or foreign aid,” said Brandon Wu, Senior Policy Advisor, ActionAid. "The Doha outcome completely fails to provide clarity. Lacking concrete numbers and dates, it lets rich countries off the hook. Developing countries have no idea whether climate finance will go up or down, or even whether it will reliably flow."

Ronald Jumeau, the Seychelles negotiator, told his American counterpart: "If we had had more ambition [on emissions cuts from rich countries], we would not have to ask for so much [money] for adaptation. If there had been more money for adaptation [to climate change], we would not be looking for money for loss and damage. What's next? Loss of our islands?"

Observers now expect armies of consultancies to spring up, which will debate from both sides the scientific basis of attributing specific extreme events and weather effects to climate change

The Doha Gateway Package

“What we have on the table is extremely weak. I think it worse than people expected,” concluded Hoda Baraka, Arab World Project, Greenpeace at the end of the final 36-hour session of the fortnight-long UN climate change talks among 195 nations in Qatar.

The other headline results from what is called the Doha Gateway Package, are:

negotiators resolved the Second Commitment Period of the Kyoto Protocol by adopting amendments;

concluded the long-term cooperative action (LCA) track, including rules around finance, accounting and review;

and agreed to move forward with the Durban Agreement, with a workplan for 2013. This will begin negotiating the global legally binding agreement, which is scheduled to be signed in 2015 and will come into force five years later.

The final Doha Gateway text was rushed through the last plenary by the Qatari host over objections. "Saving the process; killing the planet", as the Sierra Student Coalition's International Committee put it.

Two activists, Libyan Raied Gheblawi, 22, and Algerian Mohamed Anis Amirouche, 19, were deported from Qatar on Thursday after holding up a banner in the central meeting point reading "Qatar, why host not lead?"

Kyoto Protocol

The Doha outcome confirmed the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol starting on 1 January 2013. Its participants, however, account only for around 14% of world emissions.

It will run for eight years, up to the entry into force of a promised new global legal agreement in 2020.

The adopted target by the EU and Croatia and Iceland, of cutting emissions by 20% of 1990 levels by 2020, is open to being increased to 30%. The targets of all participating countries will be revisited by 2014 with a view to considering raising ambitions.

The EU and other countries taking on targets will have a limit on the number of purchases they can make of surplus emission allowances ('AAUs') left over from the first commitment period.

The EU Member States, and all other potential buyers (Australia, Japan, Liechtenstein, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland) have declared anyway that they will not purchase AAUs carried over from the first period.

EU finance

The agreement leaves the EU as the world's leading provider of official development assistance and climate finance to developing countries.

The bloc had pledged €7.2 billion in 'fast start' finance for the period 2010-12 and has assured its developing country partners that climate finance will continue after this year.

Several EU Member States and other developed countries such as the UK announced specific finance pledges for 2013, and in some cases up to 2015.

The decisions also extend a work programme on long-term finance for a year, with the aim of helping developed countries identify pathways for scaling up climate finance to $100 billion per year by 2020 from public, private and alternative sources.

Greg Barker, UK Energy and Climate Change Minister, and Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of UAE’s renewable energy company Masdar, announced they will launch a new roundtable for the world’s largest public and private sector investors in low carbon industries during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, in January. This aims to scale up investment to combat climate change in developing economies.

Barker said: “Alongside the formal negotiations taking place here in Doha, there’s a formidable amount of informal discussion around how to mobilise at scale the private finance needed to tackle climate change".

The winners at Doha

“Any government walking out here saying it is a success is suffering from a terrible case of cognitive dissonance,” said Kumi Naidoo, executive director, Greenpeace, articulating the feelings of most leaving the conference.

"They have to align the political reality of these conversations with what the science says. This failure is a betrayal of the people in the Philippines and all the other people who face climate impacts now."

Who was to blame for this failure? “It was only a handful of countries, such as Poland, Russia, Canada, the US and Japan, who held the negotiations to ransom,” thought Samantha Smith, leader of WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative.

Asad Rehman, Friends of the Earth International spokesperson in Qatar, added: "most notably the US”. Sophia McNab, UK Youth Climate Coalition delegate, went even further: “This text is a win for the USA, developed countries and fossil fuel interests. It’s a betrayal of all vulnerable nations, and our future.”

“The coal industry won here, the oil industry won here,” agreed Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy, Union of Concerned Scientists. "You saw on display the power of these industries and their short term profit to influence the governments of the world."

Wael Hmaidan, director of Climate Action Network International, said: “The path forward is actually quite clear: we have the technology and know-how. But we also need people in all regions of the world to demand leadership from their governments”.

Why Doha failed, and what to do about it

The blame for the failure at Doha to deliver a significant breakthrough to save the future world from devastating consequences of climate change once again lies with the lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry and the failure of politicians to act responsibly, in line with the scientific evidence.

In America in particular, but also in Britain, this industry is allowed to lobby and fund politicians and political parties, and in return they are expected to deliver political decisions in their favour. This is a far cry from responsible, participative democracy that citizens expect and need.

The website opensecrets.org documents the amount of money spent by oil and gas companies lobbying American politicians and financing their election campaigns. The top five companies spent the huge total of $42,470,000 on lobbying in 2012. They are: Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, Chevron and BP.

20 oil companies donated a massive $25,429,233 in political contributions during the last American election. The majority of it went to the Republicans, but enough went to the Democrats to secure the required response, given the make-up of Congress.

The result in Doha reveals what they got in exchange for this cash. For them, it represents a bargain.

For Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy, Union of Concerned Scientists, COP18 wasn't an environmental conference. It was "a trade fair" on behalf of the oil and gas industry which was there to protect its short-term profits.

Hence, the local paper's headline at the weekend: "Qatar is victory for the climate". This is sheer Orwellian spin, as in 1984's Ministry of Peace being actually responsible for war.

Qatar was widely criticised during the talks for failing to set clear targets for reducing its own emissions. Instead it argues that its liquefied natural gas exports mean it is helping other nations move away from using more polluting coal. This is like saying heroin dealing is okay because it's not as addictive as crack cocaine.

The fact that coal-dependent Poland is to host next year's talks means the takeover of the UN negotiation process by the fossil fuel industry is complete.

So if we can expect nothing of these talks, what can we do? Environmentalists and activists must realise that instead change has to come at a local and regional level.

I am just reading an excellent book, The Leaderless Revolution, by Carne Ross, a former diplomat who was Britain's Foreign Office representative at the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war.

His analysis of these types of international negotiations is spot on, and it comes from real life experience.

Entrenched positions and irresponsible decisions are the direct result of decision-makers being both far removed from the impact of their actions and being completely unaccountable for their decisions.

He quotes research showing that even when people with dramatically opposed opinions in a given community come together to make a decision affecting all of them, they will reach a reasonable and appropriate solution only if they know that they have genuine responsibility for the result.

That is to say, if the consequences of their decision affects them or others close to them directly.

Time and again, Ross cites examples where his own reports to ministers resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians in countries that he had never visited, and he himself was completely unaccountable for these deaths, just as they were.

He talks of his undying shame that he took such decisions so lightly. It took him a long time to come to his senses and realise that none of his reports for Whitehall, or the policies adopted by politicians based on his and many similar reports, went anywhere near to solving the problems that they were intended to address, such as making the world a safer place.

In fact, they had the exact opposite effect.

Politicians, he says, are incapable of doing the right thing because they cannot comprehend and arbitrate the forces that we assume, and which they persuade us, they are able to deal with.

Reality is too complex, they are preoccupied with many other concerns, including whether they will win the next election, and their hands are often tied.

An argument in a community today in Britain, over whether a windfarm should be sited nearby, frequently results in acrimonious and polarised debate, because the members of the community are not themselves responsible for the windfarm, or indeed for any form of energy supply to their community.

If they had to decide how to provide all the heat and power their community needed, if they had secured the finance themselves, if they had decided or been given a set of conditions, such as that whatever generation plant they chose should be as low carbon as possible, and if they could manage the plant afterwards, and received the rewards of their investment themselves, then the likelihood is that they would reach a reasonable solution.

In the debate, they would be prepared to listen to each other's point of view and take them into account in the process.

But communities are rarely given that responsibility.

Ross says that as a result we ourselves must take such responsibility, as, for example, citizens are doing with the Isle of Wight's Ecoisland project.

We give political power away at our peril, and when we do there is no guarantee it will result in a better situation than the one we can make on our own.

This would be true Localism, but far from what David Cameron intended when he made it a plank of his election manifesto.

His form of localism was a hollow promise. No politician will ever, in reality, give power away to the people. Why on earth would they ask you to vote for them if so?

Instead, they make promises that they know we want to believe, like “Yes we can” and ‘the greenest government ever”, and we do vote for them.

We are always let down.

Ross decries internet activism also, saying that the technology it uses is too easily appropriated by commerce and politicians.

Instead, he proposes, simply, talking to others in your community, and moving on from there.

It’s where the power revolution has to start. After Doha, it’s the only place to start.

Why Doha failed, and what to do about it

The blame for the failure at Doha to deliver a significant breakthrough to save the future world from devastating consequences of climate change once again lies with the lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry and the failure of politicians to act responsibly, in line with the scientific evidence.

In America in particular, but also in Britain, this industry is allowed to lobby and fund politicians and political parties, and in return they are expected to deliver political decisions in their favour. This is a far cry from responsible, participative democracy that citizens expect and need.

The website opensecrets.org documents the amount of money spent by oil and gas companies lobbying American politicians and financing their election campaigns. The top five companies spent the huge total of $42,470,000 on lobbying in 2012. They are: Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, Chevron and BP.

20 oil companies donated a massive $25,429,233 in political contributions during the last American election. The majority of it went to the Republicans, but enough went to the Democrats to secure the required response, given the make-up of Congress.

The result in Doha reveals what they got in exchange for this cash. For them, it represents a bargain.

For Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy, Union of Concerned Scientists, COP18 wasn't an environmental conference. It was "a trade fair" on behalf of the oil and gas industry which was there to protect its short-term profits.

Hence, the local paper's headline at the weekend: "Qatar is victory for the climate". This is sheer Orwellian spin, as in 1984's Ministry of Peace being actually responsible for war.

Qatar was widely criticised during the talks for failing to set clear targets for reducing its own emissions. Instead it argues that its liquefied natural gas exports mean it is helping other nations move away from using more polluting coal. This is like saying heroin dealing is okay because it's not as addictive as crack cocaine.

The fact that coal-dependent Poland is to host next year's talks means the takeover of the UN negotiation process by the fossil fuel industry is complete.

So if we can expect nothing of these talks, what can we do? Environmentalists and activists must realise that instead change has to come at a local and regional level.

I am just reading an excellent book, The Leaderless Revolution, by Carne Ross, a former diplomat who was Britain's Foreign Office representative at the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war.

His analysis of these types of international negotiations is spot on, and it comes from real life experience.

Entrenched positions and irresponsible decisions are the direct result of decision-makers being both far removed from the impact of their actions and being completely unaccountable for their decisions.

He quotes research showing that even when people with dramatically opposed opinions in a given community come together to make a decision affecting all of them, they will reach a reasonable and appropriate solution only if they know that they have genuine responsibility for the result.

That is to say, if the consequences of their decision affects them or others close to them directly.

Time and again, Ross cites examples where his own reports to ministers resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians in countries that he had never visited, and he himself was completely unaccountable for these deaths just as they were.

He talks of his undying shame that he took such decisions so lightly. It took him a long time to come to his senses and realise that none of his reports for Whitehall, or the policies adopted by politicians based on his and many similar reports, went anywhere near to solving the problems that they were intended to address, such as making the world a safer place.

In fact, they had the exact opposite effect.

Politicians, he says, are incapable of doing the right thing because they cannot comprehend and arbitrate the forces that we assume, and which they persuade us, they are able to deal with.

Reality is too complex, they are preoccupied with many other concerns, including whether they will win the next election, and their hands are often tied.

An argument in a community today in Britain, over whether a windfarm should be sited nearby, frequently results in acrimonious and polarised debate, because the members of the community are not themselves responsible for the windfarm, or indeed for any form of energy supply to their community.

If they had to decide how to provide all the heat and power their community needed, if they had secured the finance themselves, if they had decided or been given a set of conditions, such as that whatever generation plant they chose should be as a low carbon as possible, and if they could manage the plant afterwards, and received the rewards of their investment themselves, then the likelihood is that they would reach a reasonable solution.

In the debate, they would be prepared to listen to each other's point of view and take them into account in the process.

But communities are rarely given that responsibility.

Ross says that as a result we ourselves must take such responsibility, as, for example, citizens are doing with the Isle of Wight's Ecoisland project.

We give political power away at our peril, and when we do there is no guarantee it will result in a better situation than the one we can make on our own.

This would be true Localism, but far from what David Cameron intended when he made it a plank of his election manifesto.

His form of localism was a hollow promise. No politician will ever, in reality, give power away to the people. Why on earth would they ask you to vote for them if so?

Instead, they make promises that they know we want to believe, like “Yes we can” and ‘the greenest government ever”, and we do vote for them.

We are always let down.

Ross decries internet activism also, saying that the technology it uses is too easily appropriated by commerce and politicians.

Instead, he proposes, simply, talking to others in your community, and moving on from there.

It’s where the power revolution has to start. After Doha, it’s the only place to start.

Doha: Climate negotiators fail to meet the scientific challenge

Young UNICEF UK campaigners asking Ed Davey to speak up for children before he left for the UN climate change talks in Doha. Photo: Rosie Reed Gold/UNICEF.

On the last day, talks at Doha aimed at securing a global agreement to tackle climate change are providing scant hope, although individual announcements from nations on the sidelines provide some progress.

The central issue, as always, is fairness over who pays.

US lead negotiator, Todd Stern, told the plenary assembly that he wanted to see “the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities" provide the basis of agreement, but that "unless we can find common ground on that principle and the way in which it should apply in the world of the 2020s, we won’t succeed in producing a new Durban Platform agreement”.

The U.S. has a target of reducing emissions by 17% by 2020 compared to 2005 emissions (equal to just 4% below 1990 levels). Its negotiators said that this is unlikely to change. They say they cannot see a way of getting a global agreement for seven years; until 2020.

Like 85% of nations, the U.S. has spurned extending the Kyoto Protocol, leaving a group led by the European Union and Australia to take this forward. They believe Kyoto is no longer relevant because emerging nations led by China and India will have no targets to curb their soaring emissions from 2013.

Delegates have been repeatedly told how dire prospects are. "If anything, the science is telling us it's now getting warmer quicker than we had previously expected," said UK Energy Secretary Ed Davey, who is in Doha. "Our actions as a world are going slower than we had previously hoped."

"The question of climate management is extremely serious," Laurent Fabius, France's foreign minister, agreed. "It appears we have already exceeded the 2-degree limit. If that is the case, there are absolutely catastrophic consequences. We must react." Tackling climate change is "the new challenge in world diplomacy".

But so far, too few countries are making the kind of commitments to cut emissions that scientists agree would keep global warming below the 2 degrees Celsius limit that is estimated to prevent the most devastating effects of climate change.

Many attending the Doha talks are saying that 4 degrees Celsius of global warming by 2100 looks almost inevitable.

Meanwhile, countries debate who will pay to save the planet.

Qatar has offered no money. National pledges by Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and the EU Commission in Doha total over 6.85 billion euros for the next two years, more than in 2011-12.

The UK will be allocating around £1.8 billion aid money to climate finance up to 2015. Ed Davey, speaking at Doha, reiterated the UK’s support for contributing to the $100 billion a year by 2020 commitment of new and additional funds.

Germany and Britain this week launched the NAMA (Nationally Appropriate Mitigating Actions) Facility, to support countries to implement action against climate change. Ed Davey, pledging £25 million from the International Climate Fund (ICF), said it will “help support those developing countries that are taking ambitious action to close the gap to 2°C". Countries will compete for the funding to support their own projects. One in Mexico will go towards sustainable new housing by establishing the necessary framework conditions.

Hosts Qatar did say they will develop a 1,800 megawatt (MW) solar energy plant in 2014 costing up to $20 billion, mainly to power its desalination plants. The country has no naturally-occurring pure water. It will increase the proportion of its renewable electricity generation to 16% from zero. "We need to diversify our energy mix," said Fahad Bin Mohammed al-Attiya, chairman of the Qatari organizers of climate talks in Doha. Qatar supplies Britain with much of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) and is the world's top exporter. But it has not set any targets for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

A senior Saudi Arabia official said his country was taking the climate change issue "seriously. It is implementing carbon capture storage in the world's biggest oilfield, Ghawar, where injecting carbon dioxide back into the field helps to raise pressure and increase oil output, as well as trapping planet-warming gas".

Indonesia announced it has approved a U.N.-led rainforest conservation scheme under Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), that sets aside nearly 80,000 hectares (200,000 acres), much of it carbon-rich peat swamp forest at risk of being felled for palm oil plantations, and rewards its investors, Russian energy giant Gazprom and German insurance firm Allianz, with 104 million tradable carbon offset credits. Each credit represents a metric ton of carbon, worth almost 500 million euros based on current market rates. It is the first scheme of its kind to win formal backing in the country, and the world's first on protecting 'deep peat'.

Back in the U.S., the Obama administration said it is to invest $120 million in developing cheaper batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage. The five year project will establish a research hub with Dow Chemical Co, Applied Materials Inc, Johnson Controls Inc and the Clean Energy Trust.

Still in the U.S., the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reported that from January to October, 46.2% of new electricity-generating capacity installed was renewable. Wind accounted for 77% of this.

But the reality is that all of these announcements are nothing like what is required; they are like using a bucket to bale out the rising oceans.

"Some sort of agreement will be achieved – it always is," writes observer Giles Parkinson. However, he concludes, "the more that the UN talks fall short of expectations, the more that domestic politics plays into the hands of vested interests".

Next year, coal-dependent Poland will host the talks. Environmentalists expect little progress there either. They are now looking to Paris, which will host the 2015 talks, for realistic progress.

Energy Bill means a new sunrise for renewable energy

A new Energy Bill, two years in the making, will triple investment in renewable energy and mean the end for coal-powered generation.

The Bill commits the Government to supporting low carbon electricity to the tune of £7.6 billion by 2020, over three times the current level of £2.3 billion for 2012-13.

The Carbon Capture and Storage Association, the Nuclear Industry Association and RenewableUK welcomed the introduction of the Bill, saying it "would help to unlock billions in investment in low carbon generation, enable the UK to meet its energy security and climate change targets, and create thousands of jobs".

Solar Trade Association's PV specialist, Ray Noble, said the Bill means that "solar power will be massive" and called for a dedicated strategy for PV, "like gas".

Announcing the Bill in Parliament, Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Davey, said: "The Bill will support the construction of a diverse mix of renewables, new nuclear, gas and CCS, protecting our economy from energy shortfalls. It will stimulate supply chains and support jobs in every part of the country, capitalising on our engineering prowess and our natural resources, cementing the UK’s place at the forefront of clean energy development."

The push for low carbon electricity will add £95 a year to the average household bill by 2020, an increase of 7%.

Much of the support will be delivered through long-term contracts for difference (CfD), designed to guarantee stable revenues for investors in low-carbon energy. They will provide cash for generators of nuclear power and renewables if the market price of electricity drops below a specified strike price. A new Government owned company will act as a single counterparty to the CfDs.

A ‘capacity market’ will encourage investors to build gas-fired power plants to provide back-up for when wind farms are not generating. The System Operator (National Grid) will decide the level of generation capacity it judges is appropriate and then contract for it through an auction four years in advance.

Carbon emissions

An Emissions Performance Standard (EPS) set at a maximum of 450g CO2/kilowatt hour (kWh) will curb the most polluting coal-powered stations; any new coal-fired power station would have to be fitted with carbon emission capturing technology. "This law will mark the end of any plans for new, highly polluting coal-fired power stations in this country," commented Greenpeace political director Joss Garman.

Gas-fired power plants would remain unabated at this level, however, prompting Green Party MP Caroline Lucas to call for amendments to the Bill to rule out a new "dash for gas".

The Bill pushes the date for setting a 2030 decarbonisation range for the power sector, to 2016, once the Climate Change Committee has provided advice on the fifth Carbon Budget, which covers the period 2028 – 2033.

This has prompted calls, led by Conservative Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, Tim Yeo, for amendments to the Bill that would introduce a decarbonisation target for 2030 straight away, a move supported by Alistair Smith, Chair of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Power Division. He said: “The lack of an emissions target for 2030 leads to longer term uncertainty on clean energy investments."

The central modeling for the Bill assumes a scenario where the carbon intensity of electricity generation is 100g/kWh by 2030. Two further scenarios modelled for comparison are either side of this figure: 200 and 50g/kWh. The latter is the level recommended by the Committee on Climate Change.

Wind farm builder Alstom UK, one of seven companies who wrote to the Government arguing that a decarbonisation target was vital to permit them to locate factories in the UK, issued a statement saying: "We will continue to invest, but the pace is likely to be slower without a decarbonisation target."

Nuclear power

Oversight of the nuclear industry will be enhanced through creating an independent statutory nuclear regulator, the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

Richard George, Greenpeace nuclear campaigner, said: “The coalition agreement pledged not to subsidise new nuclear reactors. Yet the energy bill offers massive public subsidies to anyone willing to build new nuclear reactors."

Energy efficiency

During the passage of the Bill, proposals will be added to ensure energy companies help consumers to get on the best energy tariff, and to promote energy efficiency through electricity demand reduction.

Andrew Kuyk, Director of Sustainability for The Food and Drink Federation (FDF), welcomed the certainty, but wanted to see more detail. "We look forward to engaging in further discussions on how to enable ours and other UK industries to maximise... their energy efficiency in increasingly competitive world markets.”

The emphasis on energy efficiency was also welcomed by the UK Green Building Council, and Brian Smithers, director of Rexel UK, who, however, issued cautions: "Firstly, unless monitoring energy use becomes standard, it will be impossible for homeowners and businesses to understand where the biggest wins can be made.

"Secondly, the British public is relatively unaware of energy saving technologies. An energy efficiency information "hub" will be key to educating consumers and businesses alike about the benefits of measures including LED lighting, automation and efficient heating. However, we can’t just leave this to the energy suppliers."

Further reactions

John Cridland, CBI director-general, said: “Energy-intensive manufacturing is finally getting its place in the sun today, by the exemption from necessary new energy costs. Equally important is the welcome boost the bill gives to investor certainty."

Pöyry’s Richard Slark thought less certainty was given than is present in the Renewables Obligation, which will be phased put in 2018.

The Bill was welcomed by the electricity generation industry. Angela Knight, head of Energy UK, called it: “a big and positive step forward. This means that the huge investment will now start being made in our energy infrastructure and this will create jobs and help economic recovery."

Ernst and Young’s Power & Utilities Partner, Tony Ward, cautioned: "It may not be until autumn 2013 before this Bill reaches the statute book, so maintaining confidence in its safe passage will be vital."

The view from Doha is uninspiring

What we need from our leaders is: inspiration. In Doha, it seems sadly lacking.

If you fly to Doha in Qatar on he Gulf, you pass 35,000 feet over the oilfields of Iran and Iraq.

In the oily blackness of night, hundreds of orange gas flares outshine city lights by a factor of fifty, visible from space.

Kuwait is sparkly island, as is Doha itself, yet another reminder of the power fossil fuel reserves have over the Middle East.

The tiny desert isthmus of Qatar holds not a drop of natural potable water. It makes £106 billion a year from selling oil and gas that hapnes to be under its barren sands. Its residents have the highest per capita income on earth.

They get all their electricity for free. It is used profligately. The urinals in Doha airport are constantly flushed with hot water. All of the country's water has to be desalinated using oil-fired electricity.

It is here, in the Qatar National Conference Centre, where the representatives of most countries in the world have gathered for yet another round of painfully slow, and apparently almost inconsequential, negotiations to curb global levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

The grandfathers of the oil rich elite that runs this state were bedoin, wandering the desert with their tents and camels. Now they own fleets of Lexus 4x4s and Porsches.

I met a senior account manager for a Fortune 400 listed company that supplies process machinery to the oil industry in Kuwait. He held a Jordanian passport and said he believes in climate change. "But what can I do? It's not up to people like me to change the system. Our machinery will work just as well on renewable energy. But here is where the market is".

A wealthy manager of a pipeline maintenance company, in his spotless white schumagg and thoub, told me that he was aware of the talks going on in the conference centre down the road, but for him it was "just another conference". He won't be going.

Next week is one to promote trade, held by the World Chambers Federation, where 12,000 chambers will be represented. He will attend that. Good for business. The following week is a film festival, peddling dreams and escape stories.

All of this is part of the wish of Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, Qatar's ruler, to be a big player on the world stage, to convince the world that Qatar is not just about oil, but culture.

Maybe he does think, like Masdar's leaders, that the game will one day be up for oil. The country is currently spending £20 million, with Chevron and GreenGulf, on a Solar Test Facility, to investigate what technology can best convert the copious amount of solar radiation that falls on this desert land to electricity. It includes a solar desalination plant.

By hosting COP-18, the Emir is hedging his bets. COP-18 means that these annual horse-trading, long-grass-kicking stand-offs have been doing the rounds of nations for eighteen years.

Knowledge of the threat of climate change is not new.

Twenty three years ago, I was asked by Greenpeace Book's John May to write a comic book explaining global warming to young people.

Three years before that, Margaret Thatcher, in the only act for which I unreservedly admire her, alerted world leaders, especially Ronald Reagan, to it.

If only today's world leaders had Maggie's conviction.

At the heart of the story I wrote for John was a conflict between a greedy industrialist and his brother, an enlightened environmentalist. It was based on the Goldsmith brothers, James, the financier and corporate raider, and Ed, the Ecologist magazine's former publisher.

James' son, Zac, is now Conservative MP for Richmond Park, and as good an example of a Green Tory as you will find.

I suppose what I'm saying is, that at the Doha talks, being held in the context of the most dire warnings yet about global temperature rises, it is political leadership that is needed more than ever.

The talks give the impression of being complicated, and they are, but the principles are simple: the developed nations need to cough up and everyone needs to commit.

Politicians need to talk with conviction, echoing President Kennedy with "ask not what the planet can do for you but what you can do for the planet".

Or echoing Churchill, with "We will fight climate change in the factories, in the fields and in the streets. We will never surrender!"

In a word, what we need from our leaders is: inspiration.

In Doha, it seems sadly lacking.