Is the UK about to support weaker energy efficiency measures?

Tory Energy Minister Charles Hendry has appeared to indicate support for a weaker European law on energy efficiency than former Lib-Dem Energy Secretary Chris Huhne had suggested Britain would hope to achieve.

A draft text of the Energy Efficiency Directive, produced by Denmark and released yesterday, has no binding targets, nor any “meaningful review” in 2014 which could have triggered legal action.

It does contain a voluntary imperative on member states to force their energy companies to make a total of 1.5% energy savings each year.

The Danish presidency is steering through the legislation and has made it the top priority of its six month tenure.

The issue will be on the agenda of the European Energy Council in Brussels on 14 February, which is to consider the contribution of energy efficiency and renewable energy to growth and jobs.

At this meeting, the Presidency will report on progress of negotiations over the draft Directive, and during lunch Ministers will discuss potential areas of concern in terms of scope, requirements and implementation, and how they can be best addressed, before negotiations begin with the European Parliament.

In advance of the meeting, Energy Minister Charles Hendry has issued a statement saying, "We support the general level of ambition in the draft Directive although we have concerns over the level of prescription. We are pleased with the direction of discussions in Council, which reflects these concerns."

If "prescriptive" is an interpretation of "legally binding", then this stance is in contrast to former Energy Secretary Chris Huhne's previous line, which indicated support for the Directive's target to be enshrined in law.

As Ed Davey's energy efficiency team gets down to work, getting the correct wording of the Directive is likely to be high on his agenda, as UK industry will have concerns over any unilateral investments in energy saving it would have to make that could give it competitive disadvantage in Europe as a whole.

The timing is tight, since, following next week's meeting, the Parliament committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) votes on the Energy Efficiency Directive on 28 February, with the whole European Parliament plenary vote taking place a month later.

Cumulative savings

The draft text says that the 1.5% savings would have to accumulate each year, in contrast to existing legislation, such as the Energy Service Directive (2006), which allows member states to count savings from the previous decade towards their annual targets.

However, the text includes an option for member states to count savings from the energy transformation sector towards the target.

This point was criticised by the campaign group Climate Action Network-Europe. “This particular target was meant to trigger savings at the end use, not in the transformation sector,” said spokeswoman Erica Hope.

"Europe's GDP will be higher if the 20% savings target is met, according to the Commission's Impact Assessment accompanying the EED," she continued. "This is besides the other benefits listed in the energy efficiency plan such as, for example, two million new jobs and €1,000 annual savings on energy bills."

The European Commission had asked for a 2014 review to be built into the Energy Efficiency Directive, at which point, if certain criteria had not be met, mandatory national targets would be introduced.

The Danish text fails to include this, instead introducing weaker assessment points in 2013 and 2015 deadline, which would simply determine whether the European Union is on track to achieve its 20% by 2020 energy efficiency target.

The Danish draft takes account of the previous, Polish presidency’s concerns, that a directive would be costly to their coal-dependent energy regime, by curbing industry interference over how member states' individual targets are distributed.

The draft represents a victory for the lobbying power of conservatives such as Business Europe and German Liberal members of the European Parliament, who oppose binding targets and argue that market forces, rather than regulators, should dictate policies.

A grouping of Conservative politicians had called for the 20% target to be achieved either through a cut in primary energy use of 368 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) or by a cut in EU energy intensity.

But this would be unacceptable to Europe's more coal-dependent, less rich nations, while richer ones like Germany are already closer to the target.

"An energy intensity target is a lose-lose situation," said Brook Riley, climate justice and energy campaigner for Friends of the Earth. "It might not provide an adequate incentive to improve further."

The UK is well placed to meet the concerns of the EED already. Buildings consume 40% of total final energy in the EU, and improvements in their performance will form a core part of the Directive.

The Green Deal and consequent expansion of the use of Energy Performance Certificates will be crucial to achieving reductions.

Financing the measures

On the issue of financing the Directive's measures, an amendment to the draft Energy Efficiency Directive being considered would mandate the set aside of 1.4 billion emission allowances (EUAs).

This would, according to a submission by oil company Shell, push up the EU-ETS carbon price to around €23/tCO2.

Since this could also generate extra revenues for governments, which could be invested in low-carbon technology, the extra value created by the increase in price is expected to be more than the value of the allowances that would be set aside.

The amendment is intended "to restore the price mechanism to levels envisaged in the impact assessment on which basis [the energy efficiency directive] was agreed".

Fifteen companies and lobby groups, including Dong Energy, Alstom, Vestas and Shell, wrote to the president of the EU Commission in support of the amendment.

The Commission has so far shied away from interfering in the carbon credits market, although policymakers said yesterday that carbon prices should rise to no higher than 30 euros through a one-off market intervention, while another coalition of industrial high carbon emitters urged European Parliamentarians to reject any proposal to give the European Commission the power to slash the supply of carbon permits.

Chris Huhne resigns: Norman Lamb tipped to be the new Energy Secretary

Norman Lamb

Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat MP for North Norfolk is tipped as the favourite to replace Chris Huhne as Energy Secretary following his resignation today.

Mr. Huhne's position became untenable after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced this morning that there was sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

In a statement this morning, Mr. Huhne vowed, "I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight them in the courts and I am confident a jury will agree. To avoid any distraction to my official duties or my trial defence I am standing down as secretary of state for energy and climate change.

"I will of course continue to serve my constituents in Eastleigh."

He and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce have both been charged with the same offence as a result of allegations that he asked her to take points on his driving licence for a speeding offence in 2003 on his behalf.

They will appear before Westminster Magistrates Court on February 16th.

Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, took the unusual step of making the announcement live on television, saying: "We have concluded that there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against both Mr Huhne and Miss Pryce for perverting the course of justice".

The maximum penalty for perverting the course of justice is life, but those found guilty can also be given a fine.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg both agreed that Mr Huhne should leave his post, despite Mr. Huhne insisting that he will fight to prove his innocence.

Chris Huhne was convicted in 2003 under the Road Traffic Act 1988 of using a mobile phone while driving his car on a busy London street. Following his conviction, he was banned from driving for three months.

Chris Huhne's record

Greenpeace has issued a statement lamenting Mr. Huhne's departure: “Chris Huhne will be a tough act to follow, his achievements in getting the Green Bank and stricter legally binding carbon targets are a physical legacy of what he was able to accomplish.

"He has been a vocal advocate for the green agenda in a government whose green credentials are looking more than a little tarnished," the statement read.

As Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change he has been hugely instrumental in fighting for strong legislation and funding to strengthen the country's ability to combat and withstand climate change.

He has been a champion of the concept of putting energy efficiency and cutting carbon emissions at the heart of all government decisions, with binding legal commitments under the Climate Change Act, and he has been the only Secretary of State to consistently given credence to the Prime Minister's intention to make his "the Greenest Government ever".

This has put the UK at the forefront of global efforts to tackle climate change, efforts which he fought to bolster when he attended the Cancun climate talks.

His first act was to introduce National Wind Week and he even erected a small wind turbine on his constituency home in Eastle.

His position on nuclear power was equivocal, having initially opposed it, but it is thanks to him that the Coalition is committed to not using any public money to support new nuclear power stations.

The Feed-in Tariffs, Green Deal and Renewable Heat Incentive have all been steered through Parliament with him at the helm.

It is a great loss that he will now be unable to see through the Energy Market Reform bill and the Green Deal itself.

Norman Lamb

Possibly the next Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Norman Lamb is the son of a climatologist and has repeatedly spoken out on behalf of efforts to curb climate change.

Currently he is a member of the Liberal Democrat Front Bench Team as Chief Parliamentary and Political Adviser and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg.

Hew spoke strongly for Chris Huhne and his climate policy in a Commons debate last December.

A decision is expected from Number Ten soon.

Huhne blasts critics of renewable energy as RHI gets go-ahead

Chris Huhne and Greg Barker on Monday reiterated the Government's commitment to renewable energy, highlighting especially how many jobs it is helping to create.

Energy Secretary Chris Huhne addressed the Renewable UK annual conference in Manchester, where WWF has launched a report which demonstrates how Britain could meet between 60 and 90% of its electricity demand from renewable sources by 2030.

And in London, Energy Minister Greg Barker announced that state aid approval has been granted by the European Commission for the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), enabling it to be launched for commercial purposes.

The E.C. had expressed concern that the large biomass tariff was set too high.

It has now been reduced from 2.7p per KWh to 1p per KWh.

Revised regulations have been re-laid in Parliament and it's hoped the scheme will be open to applications by the end of November 2011, subject to Parliamentary approval.

9,000 new jobs in one year

Chris Huhne, in his speech, countered critics of renewable energy (members of his audience will no doubt have their own ideas on whom he means) by saying that its technologies will deliver a third industrial revolution "every bit as profound as the first two".

“We are not going to save our economy by turning our back on renewable energy," he said.

“At a time when closures and cuts dominate the news cycle, next-generation industries are providing jobs and sinking capital into Britain."

He promised that the UK "will be the largest market in Europe for offshore wind” and highlighted the £1.7billion investment in renewable energy and over 9,000 jobs created just this year.

Wind developers need to get their act together

RenewableUK yesterday published figures at the conference showing that over the first half of this year onshore wind output was up 64% from 2.97TWh to 4.86TWh, whilst offshore rose even further, up 87% from 1.13TWh to 2.11TWh.

On 30th June 2011, 5,560MW of wind capacity was operational in the UK, with 3,615MW under construction.

A further 5,437MW was consented, awaiting construction, giving a grand total of 14,612MW consented, under construction or operational.

A further 9,084MW remain in the planning system awaiting determination.

This figure is slightly down from 9,174MW in the system at the end of 2010 and 9,299MW at the end of 2009.

But whereas consents for new wind capacity is rising, that for onshore wind has almost flatlined in the last four years due to problems at the planning stage.

Approvals for projects have reached an all-time low of 42%. English planning authorities are the most restrictive, approving only 26% of applications.

Developers have been their own worst enemies in many cases, the research shows, with holdups being caused by them not ensuring the project's commercial viability (17%), not selling projects (14%), objections due to interference with civil radar (14%), and grid connection problems (14%).

Problems with projects already operational and in construction include selling the projects after consent (26%), supply line issues with sourcing turbines (21%), intractable planning conditions (13%) and access route difficulties.

All of this points to developers needing to engage communities and do their homework better.

Offshore, the figures show that the UK may struggle to fulfil new orders in four years' time as the yearly growth in UK offshore wind farms is expected to double between 2015 and 2016.

Annual offshore wind deployment will rise to 1.2 gigawatts (GW) in 2012 and exceed 2.5 GW in 2016, after a forecast drop in activity in 2013-14 due to a lack of consented projects.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s analysis of offshore finance suggests that a further 3.67GW of offshore wind will be commissioned over 2012-15, requiring £13.6bn in investment.

WWF's six low carbon futures

The WWF report, prepared by GL Garrad Hassan (GL GH), portrays six potential future scenarios about the sourcing of the UK’s electricity in 2030.

They all achieve the near decarbonisation of the power sector without new nuclear power but differ according to the level of electricity demand and the use of different methods for ensuring system security.

In all cases, there would be ambitious increases in electric vehicles (EVs) and electric heating.

The more ambitious scenarios require more substantial energy efficiency and behavioural change to reduce demand.

WWF says that the core scenarios show that it is perfectly feasible to develop a stable and secure electricity system where renewables deliver at least 60% of the UK’s electricity demand by 2030.

This percentage is much higher than the 40% share suggested by the Government's Committee on Climate Change in its May 2011 Renewable Energy Review, which assumes the need for new nuclear power.

Gas, including the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS), and greater interconnection provide the rest of the UK’s electricity under these core scenarios.

Reducing demand further in the more ambitious scenarios would actually make the transition cheaper by cutting the capital costs of building new generation capacity by around £40bn by 2030.

The report was welcomed by Siemens, whose director for Business Development, Sustainability and Government Affairs, Michael Rolls, said it "highlights the need for strong stable policies to drive investment, stimulating the green economy and bringing skilled manufacturing, construction and service jobs to the UK.”

Gavin Neath, Unilever's senior vice president of Sustainability, also praised the report, saying that "reaching such a goal will not just be good for business but it will be absolutely essential if we are to retard the speed of accelerating climate change".

Huhne calls nuclear policy an expensive failure

Chris Huhne, the UK's Energy Secretary, yesterday called the UK nuclear policy "a runner to be the most expensive failure of post-war British policy-making"?

But it's even more expensive than he says!

Speaking to the Royal Society, Britain's most prestigious scientists, he was astonishingly frank.

"We manage the world’s largest plutonium stocks – more than a hundred tonnes – and they will need guarding for as long as it takes us to convert it and build long-term deep storage. And if we don’t, we will have to guard it for tens of thousands of years." he said.

High thought they seem, the figures he quotes are actually relatively low.

Those for managing the existing legacy are higher than the £59bn he mentions - referencing the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

The NDA's Nuclear Provision for 2010/2011 alone was just over £49 billion.

The last estimate for the cost of dealing with the waste and decommissioning of the U.K.'s 19 reactors, by the National Audit Office in January 2008, was £73 billion over 100 years, almost £12 billion (18 per cent) higher than the 2005 estimate.

But if one year's custody and decommissioning cost £49 billion, how much will it cost over the next century?

As Huhne said, though "I cannot be confident that the figure will not rise again as we discover yet more problems."

Meaning: it sure will.

The cost of dealing with this existing situation - mostly waste management - is huge - almost half of DECC's budget, and already, using the NAO's 2008 figure, about £1000 per UK individual.

Then Huhne quotes Arup's figures for the cost of energy: "Offshore wind is assessed at £130 per megawatt hour, gas with carbon capture at £95 per megawatt hour, and nuclear at £66 per megawatt hour".

I don't believe a gas plant with CCS will be built for at least 10 years. The technology is untested and too expensive.

SSE is having a wobble about the cost and asking for more cash from the Treasury now.

I'm not optimistic about its chances.

By 2020, offshore wind costs will have come down much further, just as nuclear costs are rising.

Offshore wind is a good bet. DECC has just launched a programme to bring costs down.

Tidal energy is fast rising. 31 projects are underway.

It is good that progress on keeping nuclear safe is being made. The safety record of UK nuclear reactors is excellent.

But this progress means that there are further delays and costs associated with new build. It's not surprising that companies like E.ON and SSE are pulling out.

My prediction is that no more than one new nuclear build will happen, and maybe not even that.

It will go over budget, over schedule, and do nothing to help us meet 2020 carbon reduction targets.

Too little, too late, too expensive, too risky, too compromising for future generations.

People call anti-nuclear campaigners irrational, but there is nothing irrational about that.

Weightman warns nuclear industry to do more research

Above: Dead cattle in barn on ranch at Namie, radiation exclusion zone, Fukushima Prefecture: photo by Tachyon (via Rocket News 24, 11 April 2011.

The post-Fukushima Weightman report into nuclear safety has been welcomed by the Government and industry as being favourable, but contains warnings to the industry.

Chris Huhne has interpreted the report on the UK's nuclear power stations and facilities as giving the green light to nuclear newbuild, but critics have claimed it is "rushed".

The report, by Dr. Mike Weightman, the chief nuclear inspector at the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), "sees no reason to curtail the operation of power plants or other nuclear facilities in the UK" in the wake of the powerful earthquake and subsequent tsunami which crippled the Japanese plants in March, according to Energy Secretary Chris Huhne, who laid it before Parliament yesterday.

Huhne told the Commons that Weightman "believes the industry has reacted responsibly and appropriately, displaying strong leadership for safety and safety culture".

But the report makes a number of recommendations, including reviews of emergency procedures, of techniques for estimating radioactive source terms, and of the adequacy of the system of planning controls for commercial and residential developments off the nuclear licensed site, which will add to delays and costs for any developers.

It also charges the nuclear industry and the ONR to have "more open, transparent and trusted communications, and relationships, with the public".

Obfuscation was a widespread criticism of the industry in Japan and worldwide, both before and after the tsunami.

Although the Weightman report does say "there is no need to change the present siting strategies" for new nuclear power stations in the UK, it adds that the nuclear industry should "review the dependency of nuclear safety on off‐site infrastructure in extreme conditions" and look at flooding, power-supply and storage risks.

Caroline Flint, speaking for the first time in her new role replacing Meg Hillier as Labour's Shadow Energy Secretary, gave full support to the report, adding, "Now the Tory-led Government needs to give investors the support and confidence they need to deliver the construction of new capacity in the nuclear industry”.

Sellafield criticism

Sellafield is singled out for criticism by Dr. Weightman's report, saying that Sellafield Ltd, the company which runs the site, Britain’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority which owns Sellafield, and the British Government “all regard urgent progress with the legacy ponds and silos remediation and retrievals programme as a national priority”.

“This priority is reinforced by the example of the Fukushima accident, where the vulnerabilities of an older plant were not sufficiently recognised and addressed,” says Dr. Weightman.

“The main focus for the site must remain the retrieval of the radioactive inventory from these facilities and the processing of the material into safer waste forms,” he reports. “In the meantime, contingency measures are put in place.”

The report says the storage ponds for nuclear waste at Sellafield, some of which are up to 50 years old, "can never be brought up to modern standards".

The heat-generating capacity of the radioactive material stored in the ponds is lower than that of fuel in an operating nuclear power plant, so accident scenarios generally develop over longer timescales than those modelled for nuclear power plants.

Sellafield’s management is reviewing the plant’s cooling, ventilation, inerting and containment systems and “the availability and reliability of these systems under accident conditions”, but the work has “yet to be completed”.

Flooding, venting and power supplies
The report also cautions about the danger of flooding.

It warns nuclear plant managers and developers (reiterating the point made in June in the Government's Response to Consultation on the Revised Draft National Policy Statements for Energy Infrastructure) that they must examine "the effects of the credible maximum scenario in the most recent projections of marine and coastal flooding", and "demonstrate that in principle adaptation to such a scenario would be possible".

The nuclear industry must "initiate a review of flooding studies, including from tsunamis, in light of the Japanese experience, to confirm the design basis and margins for flooding at UK nuclear sites".

It should also look at the ventilation and venting routes of radioactive gas and liquids for nuclear facilities.

The report admits that detailed information is not available on the performance of concrete, other structures and equipment, in earthquakes (Recommendation IR‐15).

Nor is there sufficient evidence about the "robustness and potential unavailability of off–site electrical supplies under severe hazard conditions" (Recommendation IR‐17).

Rushed report

Back in the Commons, it was left to Caroline Lucas of the Green Party to be one of the few MPs expressing scepticism, calling the report "rushed out", because of the lack of evidence backing the overall claim.

She complained that by being released in the form of a Written Statement it offered "little chance for Parliamentary scrutiny".

She added "It will do little to reassure the British public that the nuclear industry can be trusted to power our energy future".

Greenpeace provided evidence for this view by pointing out that its release is "significantly ahead of the major international comparable reviews into the implications of Fukushima", which are:

• 31 December: ONR's final report on EU stress tests.
• April 2012: Independent peer review of the national reports on the EU stress tests
• March 2012: UN action plan on nuclear safety
• August 2012: The Convention on Nuclear Safety meeting to consider the lessons of Fukushima.

Louise Hutchins, Greenpeace Senior Energy Campaigner said: "It's designed with one objective - to give the green light to a new generation of nuclear power stations, irrespective of the safety, environmental or rising financial costs of those nuclear stations. This is government complacency."

Labour's Paul Flynn, a long-time critic of nuclear power, agreed: "The country needs consideration of the full implications, principally the cost that is making nuclear power unaffordable and uninsurable throughout the planet.

"We are not getting that and we should ask the Government to do their full job and present us with a report that is comprehensive and full."

Under questioning, Mr. Huhne admitted that an email had been sent immediately after the Fukushima disaster from an official in the Business Department warning that it must not derail the UK's expansion of nuclear power and appealing to the industry to help the Government present the pro-nuclear case.

In answer to criticism that Dr Weightman could have looked at the costs of nuclear newbuild, Mr. Huhne said the Dr. Weightman "quite rightly, as the chief nuclear inspector charged with safety, takes the view that safety comes first regardless of the issues of costs".

Chris Huhne is progressing with plans to establish the ONR as a statutory body. Dr Weightman is to report within a year on the progress industry is making to improve standards, including plant layout, flood defences and other issues.

CBI urges Government to give investors certainty so business can fight climate change

Businesses want to and must maintain the trend to low carbon innovation, but need more investment, which requires commitment from politicians, both CBI Deputy Director-General Dr. Neil Bentley and Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) told an audience of business leaders and the Energy Secretary Chris Huhne at the CBI’s first international Green Business Dinner in London last night.

Ms. Figueres also said that when countries like Britain fulfilled ambitious climate change targets this encouraged poorer countries like China and India to follow suit.

Companies are being given the wrong value by world stock markets, because the cost of their exposure to climate change is not being factored in, she said. "As long as these companies [that emit large quantities of greenhouse gases] have a high value, we are giving out the wrong signals," she said. "It has got to be that those companies that are investing in the technologies of the future are recognised."

She said that companies ought to take on board the political target of keeping global average temperatures below 2oC above pre-industrial levels. "We are moving to a low-carbon future – businesses need to understand that signal. This is a megatrend."

She said that by 2031 businesses will need to extract five times the economic value that they do today for every tonne of carbon dioxide emitted, calling on both governments and businesses to unleash the investment needed for "a transformation of the economy".

How committed are the Conservatives?

In the UK, the overwhelming feeling in the environmental industries sector is that George Osborne's speech to the Tory Party conference last week signalled an about-turn in Treasury thinking regarding support for low carbon technology.

Further evidence came from a Sunday Times article that Osborne is delaying rubber-stamping the Renewables Obligation Certificate banding review despite anger from David Cameron and other Ministers from DECC and Vince Cable's Business Department.

The consultation on an increase in speed limits, the proposal to reinstate weekly bin collections and, most importantly, Osborne's commitment to ensure the UK's carbon targets do not exceed those adopted by Europe were defended on Sunday's BBC Politics Show [22 minutes 20 seconds in] by Chris Huhne as marking either no change in the UK's position or not yet proven to have an impact on carbon emissions.

Osborne had hinted in his speech that part of his motivation for being cautious on the low carbon front was that there was opposition to green policies from members of the CBI.

Yet last night at the Green Business Dinner, the CBI’s Dr. Neil Bentley told the Government that British businesses are committed to tackling climate change, but blamed politicians at home and abroad for failing to provide clarity and certainty for investors about issues such as Electricity Market Reform, the Green Deal and a globally-binding emissions deal.

He said, "the case for a global emissions deal is even more compelling".

“Today, we find ourselves not ahead of the pack, but out on a limb," he said. "We’ve got no international deal, no global carbon price, no meaningful EU price and the UK tying itself in costly green policy knots.

"The UK is in danger of straining to hit its targets but missing the point: that we need an economy that’s low carbon and competitive.”

"We wanted first-mover advantage," he said, "We acted on the expectation of a global deal to address our competitiveness concerns. We acted without realising what was around the corner economically."

He blamed dithering and tinkering from Coalition politicians - such as making the Carbon Reduction Commitment into a straightforward tax, "adding to bottom-line costs and doing nothing to help businesses achieve their green goals" - as well as the low price of carbon due to an ineffectively managed EU Emissions Trading Scheme.

Europe's Environment Ministers, also meeting yesterday, are in agreement. They admitted that the number of "Assigned Amount Units (AAUs)" - free permits to pollute given to countries and industry - continues to be a problematic issue affecting the carbon price, but that suddenly reducing the number allocated would cause a mass sale and a price fall, which represents a double bind dilemma.

"We're going to have to continue to work on it," admitted Polish Environment Minister Andrzej Kraszewski after the meeting in Luxembourg.

Dr. Bentley also felt that that "the renewables target has skewed the economics of our energy market". The Treasury's carbon price floor is meant to address this but is not yet in force.

As a result, “investors are struggling to understand how to invest against the proposed framework while the resulting costs could damage parts of our manufacturing sector".

He also said there was "reluctance from financiers to take the risk of underwriting" the Green Deal, which could cause it to fail.

But yesterday, Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker defended the Government's record.

In a statement responding on behalf of DECC to the Environmental Audit Committee's report on carbon budgets, which echoed the CBI leader's criticisms, he said the UK is "doing more than any other country in providing long term certainty to those investing in the low carbon economy".

He added the government was actually doing UK industry a favour by reviewing progress towards the EU emissions goal in 2014, to make sure it wasn't "disadvantaging British industry" and leading to "emissions being shipped overseas".

“Getting the rest of Europe to go further and faster in providing certainty to green investors is vital which is why we’re not letting up in pushing the EU to up its emissions reduction target to 30%,” Barker said.
 

The need for a deal at Durban

Dr. Bentley's speech underlined the necessity for a deal at the upcoming COP17 UNFCCC climate talks at Durban, since "last year saw the highest level of carbon emissions in history".

"Patience is wearing thin," he said, citing the failure at Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancun last year to reach global agreement. Wrangling "mustn’t drag on and on like the Doha Trade Round".
 
“In the absence of a deal," he continued, "companies have committed to get on with it because they understand that it’s not about what business can do for sustainability. It’s about what sustainability can do for business, driving innovation in new products and services."

He said the CBI is calling for two main outcomes from Durban: “Certainty that the Kyoto carbon markets will persist even if the protocol expires: if the Clean Development Mechanism is derailed, we’ll lose the most successful part of Kyoto and potential investment.
 
“And second, getting carbon finance flowing across the world, to places where it can encourage energy efficiency and help countries leapfrog high-carbon development and go straight for those green technologies. This will give the global economy the boost it needs."
 
He called for "a global, binding and comprehensive climate change deal. Otherwise business and nations will lose faith.”

EU ahead of targets

The EU will go to Durban well on its way to meeting its emissions targets from the Kyoto Treaty, which requires 20% cuts in Europe's emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.

Environment ministers in Luxembourg yesterday also committed to signing up to a 'Kyoto II' agreement at Durban, if other countries agreed.

Despite a 2.4 % emissions increase in 2010, and despite economic growth of 41% over the same period, Europe's greenhouse gas emissions were 15.5% below 1990 levels, according to estimates released yesterday by the European Environment Agency (EEA) on progress to meeting the continent's Kyoto targets.

In fact, the EU is likely to overshoot this target, which has inspired some member states, like the UK, to argue that it should be increased by to 30% cuts by 2020.

Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said the figures showed that the EU has successfully decoupled emissions from economic growth through the wider use of low carbon technologies.

"The EU continued decoupling emissions from GDP during the recession," she said in a statement. "Between 2008 and 2009, emissions fell by 7.1 per cent in the EU-27, much more than the around four per cent contraction in GDP."

Of the 15 EU Member States with a common commitment under the Kyoto Protocol (the 'EU-15'), emissions were 10.7 % below base year levels (1990 in most cases), which is well beyond the collective 8 % reduction target. However, Austria, Italy and Luxembourg were still behind their targets.

"Many different policies have played an active role in bringing down greenhouse gas emissions", Professor Jacqueline McGlade, EEA Executive Director, said.

"Alongside renewable energy or energy efficiency, efforts to reduce water pollution from agriculture also led to emission reductions. This experience shows we can reduce emissions further if we consider the climate impacts of various policies more systematically."

Back at last night's Green Business Dinner, Christiana Figueres also was hoping that major progress will happen at Durban.

“Governments are willing to consider a document that is equivalent to a letter of intent of all Governments to move towards a comprehensive agreement that is binding to all and incentivising to all at some point in the future.”

She admitted that any agreement will take years to draw up but it would be a major leap forward if all countries agreed to the principal of a legally binding treaty.

She also hoped that Governments would agree on how to raise the $100 billion per year by 2020 they have committed to for adaptation to climate change, technology sharing and saving forests.

Did Huhne really compare climate change to Hitler?

DECC minister Chris Huhne has compared world leaders who obstruct a global deal to tackle climate change to politicians who tried to appease Adolf Hitler before World War Two.

Does this make climate change a threat akin to the Nazis, who plunged the world into war?

The Energy and Climate Change Minister was at Chatham House, endeavouring to inject new urgency into climate change negotiations.

Huhne evoked the memory of Winston Churchill and the fight against Nazi Germany.

"This is our Munich moment," he said, in a reference to the 1938 Munich Agreement that gave Hitler part of the former Czechoslovakia in a doomed attempt to persuade him to abandon further territorial ambitions. He quoted Churchill - who was both a Liberal and Conservative MP, kind of a Coalition in one - who "once said that 'an appeaser is someone that feeds a crocodile, hoping that it will eat him last'."

But just as a crocodile will eat anyone if it's hungry enough, so climate change affects everyone - but it is the poor who stand to suffer the most.

Many developing nations seek to extend the Kyoto principles, but richer countries - Japan, Russia and Canada - want a different sort of agreement.

Poor countries say rich nations have emitted most of the greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution and so must give them more help before they can be expected to sign up to making cuts themselves.

But Huhne said "We cannot wait for every country to become equal, because that would mean waiting for an eternity. At some point, we must draw a line and say: this starts now. This starts here."

He said that it was vital that governments redouble their efforts to find a successor to the United Nations Kyoto Protocol, which controls greenhouse gas emissions only in developed countries and expires at the end of 2012.

However, he feels that it is now unlikely that a breakthrough will be made at the main annual conference beginning late November in Durban, South Africa because of “a damaging rhythm" into which "the annual cycle of UNFCCC meetings is in danger of slipping".

"Although the scientific evidence continues to grow, climate change is getting less political attention now than it did two years ago. There is a vacuum, and the forces of low ambition are looking to fill it," he said. "Giving in to the forces of low ambition would be an act of climate appeasement.

In an attempt to persuade his audience he quoted the Association of British Insurers who said, in 2009, "our assessment of climate change convinces us that the threat is real and is with us now" and he referenced the letter written to the European Union by more than 70 European companies, including Ikea and Coca Cola, asked them to aim for more ambitious carbon cuts.

"This is the last Parliament with a chance to avoid catastrophic climate change," he said. “It will end in 2015. If we have not achieved a global deal by then, we will struggle to peak emissions by 2020. It will be more expensive, more divisive, and more difficult."

He said that the political tactics must include “using soft diplomacy to shift the politics and build coalitions" and "explaining the case for action...on economic and security grounds", and using “targeted financial and practical support to help developing countries build cleaner, more climate resilient economies."


He said temperatures must be kept within 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) of pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst effects of climate change. They have already risen by 0.8 degrees Celsius and even if all emissions were stopped today, they would rise by a further 0.5 of a degree, he said.

"Sticking to our 2 degree limit means global emissions must peak by 2020 at the latest," Huhne said.

"From 2013, there will be new political leadership in the world's major economies. We hope to have put the global recession behind us. The stars may be more closely aligned in favour of a binding legal deal," he said.

Energy Bill will fail to deliver Green Deal - MPs

The Government's Energy Bill came under attack at its second reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday for being great on rhetoric but short on the kind of detail which will get the job done on time.

Fifty pieces of secondary legislation are expected to provide the detail needed, MPs said, which is currently missing in the draft and will delay its implementation.

The Bill, which contains measures to introduce the Green Deal, offshore oil and gas and energy reform, nuclear power and more, has strong cross-party support in principle.

Chris Huhne called the Green Deal - the centrepiece of the Bill but not now due to be introduced until October 2012 - ″the most comprehensive energy saving plan in the world".

The UK has oldest and least efficient buildings in Europe and they are responsible for 27% percent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions.

Huhne said that so far energy efficiency has passed under the radar, resulting in ｣2-｣3 billion being wasted every year. "That is gas and oil imports, so the Bill is good for energy security as well."

For the first time, Huhne put a figure on the amount that could be offered under the Green Deal - up to ｣10,000. He said that British Gas pilot schemes have shown that householders who do take the measures can cut bills by up to 45% or save ｣400 a year.

"Homes and businesses will be included," he said, ″backed up with a watertight legal framework. Householders will pay nothing up front. It will be paid for by savings on the bills. The energy suppliers must support consumers in doing this.

The private rented sector is the hardest to change. But Huhne said that with the Green Deal, "landlords will face no upfront costs and their properties will be improved. They have welcomed the Bill. From 2016 any tenant asking for landlord's consent to make a reasonable improvement in energy efficiency cannot be refused."

From 2018 renting of the very worst homes with an energy rating of E or F will be banned. 680,000 homes will be affected by this.

But, as Alan Whitehead, the Labour MP for Southampton, pointed out, the landlords register has been abolished by the Government, which could have helped them to monitor the sector.

All councils will play a role in delivery of the programme and the Local Government Association and DECC have an Memorandum of Agreement on the subject recently.

Huhne said that he wants to see the maximum possible range of measures included in the Bill.

The success of the Green Deal will depend upon how it works in the new market that will be created in energy savings. Huhne asserted that "The City is practically chomping at the bit to help finance the Green Deal", and cited the fact that Eaga has gone to the market already to secure bonds. "The securitisation market is opening up," he said.

The interest rate level will be key

But speaker after speaker said that success will really depend upon how low the interest rate offered will be. This figure is not in the current draft legislation, although Huhne mentioned 8-10% over 25 years.

Former Environment Secretary Michael Meacher said that the precise rate "is the fundamental issue - without a low interest rate, the Bill won't succeed as householders will be worse off than they are now.

"The WWF estimates that at 8-10% over 25 years then the likely effect of the Bill will be minimal," he said. ″Even if it is 6% only 1 in 14 households will take up the offer. The fuel poor certainly won't take it up. Why can't the energy suppliers meet the cost of helping the fuel poor in this case?"

Green MP Caroline Lucas took up this point, observing that not even Germany could obtain the level of refurbishment required, of over 4,000 houses a day. There they only manage 100,000 homes a year even with a Government-supported 2.6% interest rate.

"Besides," she added ″It is a whole house refit that is required to reach 80% reductions not a minimum level of refurbishment". At this rate, Government targets will be missed by a factor of 100.

Then there is the problem of competition. In the Warm Front scheme large companies hoovered up much of the work but smaller companies can often do it more cheaply. But Huhne promised the Green Deal will be open to small companies as well as large.

Huhne said that the legislation will create thousands of jobs. "The number of jobs will vary by area, but nationally is estimated at around 27k-100k by 2015 in insulation alone - there will also be unskilled jobs in the supply line." Costs will come because of the scale of the Green Deal.

More detail needed

The Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Meg Hillier, called the Bill "a flaccid lettuce leaf, laden with missed opportunities", and promised in committee stage to seek to improve it.

She said that there have been no evidence sessions on the Bill, as is normal with the progression of a bill through parliament. "There are 27 million homes - how can all of them be tackled in the time available?"

"Why has the Government commitment to zero carbon homes ended?" she asked. ″Why won't the Green Investment Bank be up and running for two more years? This is a dog's breakfast of a Bill. We want it to succeed, but we need more detail. Climate change is too big to leave to the market."

Michael Meacher also criticised the Bill for using assumptions provided by energy companies of the level of energy supply in the future and then presuming measures to reduce it. "This is putting cart before the horse," he said, ″as it would make sense to assume that due to energy efficiency there will be a reduced level and then make measures to reduce that.

"Why is there no proper assessment of energy demand?" he demanded. "The power generators obviously want to sell more energy."

Iain Wright, the MP for Hartlepool, an area which hopes to benefit greatly from the green industrial revolution, lamented the pace at which the government expects to proceed.

He pointed out that the UK has already fallen from 3rd to 13th place in global ranking in this area and complained of rhetoric that is not backed up by certainty and commitment affecting investment.

Will ECO be capped?

The Energy Company Obligation (ECO), which will replace the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) and the Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP) schemes at the end of 2012, will oblige energy companies to make sure that solid wall insulation is included in the Green Deal and will target the coldest homes.

But Huhne was unable to say whether it will be covered by the Treasury's Levy cap on DECC spending - if it is, it will be severely hobbled, said Alan Whitehead.

Whitehead also criticised the lack of assurances over who will accredit the contractors and doubted that there will be enough skilled people to do the job required.

Most shamefully, he said, the Green Deal fails the basic test of fairness - the poorest households will get the least help and left till last. "Who will pay the shortfall if the savings don't add up? What will happen to homeowners who buy a house that is saddled with debt?" Currently there are no answers to these questions, and the Government has abolished Consumer Focus, the body that tackles unfair practices by the energy companies.

Support for nuclear power

In other areas covered by the Bill, Martin Horwood (LibDem MP for Cheltenham) charged that Section 102 of the Bill gives away the Secretary of State's negotiating power over decommissioning costs for nuclear power stations, potentially leaving the door open for the taxpayer to pick up the bill.

“This means that the Government has effectively abandoned its commitment that the taxpayer should not support the nuclear industry", he observed, pointing out the ｣61bn compensation that is being given by the Japanese government for the 800,000 people who have been evacuated as a result of the Fukushima disaster.

He said the Japanese are now reconsidering their energy policy with more emphasis on renewables and energy efficiency.

Huhne also said that an announcement on the fourth carbon budget, published by the Committee for Climate Change last December, will be made soon.

The Bill will now go to committee stage.

Pale green budget tomorrow will cancel CCS levy and forbid Green Investment Bank from borrowing

George Osborne's first budget tomorrow will say that the Green Investment Bank will not be allowed to raise its own finance for some time.

And the levy on electricity bills which had been proposed to raise finance for carbon capture and storage (CCS) plants is to be dropped.

The levy was touted in last autumn's Spending Review as a means of raising billions of pounds for flagship CCS projects. In the review, Osborne said £1 billion was set aside for at least one CCS pilot, with a further three projects to be financed either by the levy or by public money.

But the levy is no longer on the cards following lobbying from industry. This argued that effectively there will already be four carbon taxes, which is complicated enough, and the levy would be a fifth - just too much. The four taxes are:

• the Climate Change Levy (CCL) - since 2001, taxing fossil fuel energy supply to those businesses without a climate change agreement (CCA) with DECC (which gives 80% - reducing to 65% from next month - reduction on this tax)


• the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme - beginning in 2012, which will raise £1 billion a year by 2014-15 from businesses who consumed over 6,000 MWh in 2008


• the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (affecting generators and the metals, mineral, and pulp and paper industries) - now, most permits are given away free, but the proportion will reduce significantly in 2013


• the new carbon price support mechanism (CPSM), designed to tax fossil fuels used in electricity generation (by removing CCL exemptions from 2013) to make generators' investment in CCS, renewable and nuclear generation more favourable.

The carbon price support mechanism, currently the subject of a consultation, is also to be further described in tomorrow's budget.

City accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers was amongst those arguing against the CCS levy. Its partner Mark Schofield has written: “The introduction of a floor price would be a significant change for many companies with high emissions, particularly if the Government decides to set this higher than the EU ETS traded permit price. It is likely that the Government will set a lower price initially, rising over time, but they can’t be too generous.

“One of the main criticisms from the industry is that the carbon floor price will add another layer of policy complexity to an already overcrowded energy supply chain policy mix. It may be difficult for potential investors in low carbon generation to distil from these overlapping policy measures a reliable carbon price signal to guide investment decisions, and for users of energy to understand the overall policy objective.”

This raises questions over how or whether the three further CCS projects will be built. Scottish and Southern Energy, Powerfuel Power Limited, Alstom UK and Ayrshire Power are amongst the companies competing to build them.

The prospect of being able to capture carbon from fossil fuel burning power stations has become key to many policies about tackling climate change while keeping business as usual. This is despite the fact that there is no large-scale commercial demonstration that the technology works anywhere in the world.

The EU will be part subsidising the projects. CCS supporters are hoping that the floor price for carbon will be set high enough to raise sufficient funding for CCS. But then so will renewable energy generators and nuclear newbuild supporters.

The Treasury itself says (in the CPSM consultation document) that around £110 billion in new generation and grid connections alone is required by 2020. The same amount again will be required for further upgrades.

The Green Investment Bank

Where will this investment come from? Great hopes have been pinned on the Green Investment Bank.

Osborne is expected to pledge tomorrow that £3 billion will be given to kickstart the Bank. He will say that he believes this will be enough to raise £18 billion of investment into green projects by 2014-15, with the rest coming from the private sector.

This is still a fraction of what is required, which has raised criticism of the Treasury for blocking Energy Secretary Chris Huhne's demand that the new Bank be able to borrow money itself.

Osborne will say tomorrow that the Bank will be able to issue bonds once the nation's debt is falling as a poor portion of grass domestic product–anticipated after April 2015. But for many this will not be soon enough.

Huhne has been locking horns with the Treasury, demanding that it be created as a fully fledged bank. The Treasury's line has been that allowing small investors to take part in the bank's investments would be too complicated, and any borrowing liabilities would be on the government balance sheet, thereby making the deficit appear worse.

“This throws into doubt Britain’s chances of building a low carbon economy and means we will now lose jobs and industries to places like China, Germany and Silicon Valley in California,” said John Sauven, Greenpeace executive director.

The bank is expected to be funded by sales of assets, such as the government one third share in Urenco, the company which enriches uranium for nuclear power stations.

UK gave dead children's body parts to American nuclear researchers

The UK Government has apologised for letting parts of the dead bodies of nuclear industry workers and thousands of children be removed for analysis without telling their families.

The events happened in hospitals and UK nuclear facilities from 1955 to 1992.

An inquiry was set up in 2007 by the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Alistair Darling. It was undertaken by Michael Redfern QC, who has just published his findings.

The Inquiry looked at the processes and practices surrounding the analysis of human tissue from many nuclear installations, not just Sellafield, including Springfields, Capenhurst, Winfrith, Dounreay and Aldermaston.

Project Sunshine

The report says that during the 1950s and 1960s the Medical Research Council oversaw research measuring levels of Strontium-90 in human bone - femurs and vertebrae - obtained at post mortem. This national survey, involving over 6000 people, most of them children, had nothing to do with nuclear workers.

Information gained was in some cases set to America, to be included in a research project named - in some kind of sick joke - Project Sunshine. This study, initiated in the US in 1953, received vertebrae taken in the UK from 43 individuals who died between 1955 and 1958.

The Inquiry found that one doctor involved, Dr Loutit, in 1959, found difficulty in obtaining adequate numbers of samples, which led him to offer a modest payment - although none was ever made. Bones were "converted to ash" for analysis. The last paper on this topic was published in 1973, describing results obtained from bone taken from people who had died in 1970.

Families’ views were not obtained as required under the Human Tissue Act 1961. The report says that "All the pathologists who gave evidence to the Inquiry had been profoundly ignorant of the law under which they had performed post mortem examinations", which "arose from deficiencies in medical education and training".

As part of Project Sunshine, 91 pregnant British women were injected with radioactive iodine in the 1960s and a further 37 women who were due to undergo medically-approved abortions had been involved in a separate series of tests to monitor the effect of radioactive iodine in the foetus.

The experiments were conducted in Aberdeen, Hammersmith and Liverpool. "In a separate series of experiments, between 1957 and 1970, body parts from an estimated 6,000 corpses had been removed for tests without the permission of the next of kin and sent for examination at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment," claimed a 1995 UK Channel 4 documentary 'True Stories: Deadly Experiments'.

Sellafield workers' body parts removed

Organs from 64 former Sellafield workers were also removed by pathologists and taken for analysis at Sellafield between 1960 and 1991.

In addition, organs taken from 12 workers at other nuclear sites were analysed at, or at the request of, Sellafield, giving a total of 76. The Inquiry also found evidence of other individuals whose organs were analysed at Sellafield.

The report highlights unacceptable working practices within the nuclear industry, NHS pathology services and the coronial service, saying "there was a lack of ethical consideration of the implications of the research work the industry was doing; that there was limited supervision undertaken; and that relationships between pathologists, coroners and the Sellafield medical officers became too close."

Investigations also found that "organs from a small number of former Ministry of Defence employees were removed for analysis".

Coroners' failures

Coroners did not communicate with families, who were left in the dark. There was no attempt to explain to them why the coroner had ordered a post mortem or what it would entail.

They often failed to read post mortem reports. As a result, when the reports indicated organs had been inappropriately removed, they remained in ignorance and took no action.

The report acknowledges that these events occurred a number of decades ago, and puts them within the context of the times and current practice.

Government Apology

Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change told Parliament: “I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt regret and to apologise to the families and relatives of those involved. I hope that the publication of today’s report goes some way toward providing the closure they deserve.

“The events described in the Inquiry should never have happened in the first place. We have learned the lessons of the past. The law on human tissue has been reviewed, and there is now a rigorous regulatory system in place, in which both the public and professionals have confidence."

A Redfern Inquiry helpline has been set up to help people who think their relative may have been involved in one of the studies covered by the Redfern Inquiry. The telephone number is 0800 555 777 and minicom number is 0800 887 777.

Huhne promised this would never happen again. He said that the Secretary of State for Justice intends to take forward several of the provisions in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 which address some of the concerns. "Although the Government is not proceeding with the role of a Chief Coroner" - due to the cuts - "we intend to transfer many of the intended leadership functions of the post to the Lord Chancellor, or possibly the senior judiciary", he said.

"The Inquiry has sought and received assurances from all of the key nuclear industry stakeholders that the practice of retaining organs or tissue at autopsy has ceased," he added.

The Results

Examination of tissues looked into the prevalence of various isotopes including those of plutonium. The Report says that a fair amount of the research was not scientifically valid, for various reasons, not all of which could have been known at the time.

If it can be believed given the notorious secrecy of the industry, the report says, "In many cases the levels of [radioactive] activity in the samples were towards or even below the lower limit of detection. Results are generally a few hundred millibecquerels: one mBq represents one single atomic decay every 1,000 seconds (16.7 minutes)."

The Report recommends that the data collected from all the research, "should be made available, anonymised, for use in appropriate research".