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Posts tagged with: Climate change

The Court of Appeal today (Wednesday 25 January 2012) unanimously rejected Government attempts to overturn last month’s High Court ruling that its plans to rush through sudden cuts to solar tariff payments are illegal.

The Government is now seeking permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. Friends of the Earth says the move will create yet more uncertainty for solar firms and after two courts have ruled their move illegal is urging Ministers to concentrate on safeguarding the industry rather than wasting more time and money on further appeals.

The High Court ruled shortly before Christmas that Government plans to cut payments for any solar scheme completed after 12 December – 11 days before the official consultation closed – were unlawful. The judgement followed legal challenges brought by Friends of the Earth and two solar firms, Solarcentury and HomeSun, last month.

Today’s judgement will prevent Ministers rushing through cuts to feed-in tariff payments in future, restoring some confidence to the UK’s clean energy industry. But Friends of the Earth warns that unless Ministers change other parts of their solar subsidy proposals, up to 29,000 jobs could be lost.

Friends of the Earth is urging Ministers to find more money – paid for from tax payments the industry generates – to safeguard the long-term stability of the solar industry. The environmental campaigning charity is also calling for crucial amendments to proposed Government solar payment changes, including re-examining over-strict energy efficiency rules that will prevent 90 per cent of houses from claiming solar subsidies.

Today’s ruling means that, subject to any further appeal to the Supreme Court, solar tariff payments will remain at 43.3p (p/kWh) until 3 March 2012 when – following Government moves last week – they will fall to 21 pence.

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

“This landmark judgement confirms that devastating Government plans to rush through cuts to solar payments are illegal – and will prevent Ministers from causing industry chaos with similar cuts in future.

“The Government must now take steps to safeguard the UK’s solar industry and the 29,000 jobs still facing the chop.

“Ministers must abandon plans to tighten the screw on which homes qualify for solar payments – and use the massive tax revenues generated by solar to protect the industry.

“Helping more people to plug into clean British energy will help protect cash-strapped households from soaring fuel bills.”

With the Queen granting Gordon Brown permission to dissolve parliament, the speculation can now stop and the hype begin; the general election will be on May 6. With this announcement the debate has already started, generally focusing on the key issue of the day, namely the world financial crisis and how the party leaders plan to reverse the trend in job cuts in the UK.

Afghanistan, the NHS, education and crime will almost certainly be hot topics for discussion. Even the issue of reducing the tax on cider distracts readers of certain tabloids from the more relevant problems of the day.

These issues aside, the three main party leaders, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have asserted that they are the ‘greenest’ party (perhaps excluding the Green party) and that they will each strive to set in motion the carbon neutral revolution of the economy in the next five years. During the next four weeks we are certain to read much boasting from the respective parties regarding their green manifestos but what are we to expect?

Conservatives

Energy: David Cameron has stated on numerous occasions that he doesn’t see nuclear power as a long term energy solution for the UK, insisting that he would prefer to see greater investment in renewable energy as a means of transitioning from fossil fuel energy sources.

With the EU setting a target of generating 20 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2020 the Conservatives have supported the development of green energy sites from an executive level. David Cameron has long been an advocate of green energy and a supporter of the feed-in tariff mechanism as a way of driving investment in new technologies. 

Emissions: Ambitious targets have been set with the Conservatives announcing that they will set carbon reduction targets of 60 per cent by 2050 which would be monitored on a year to year basis by an independent climate change commission.

If elected into government the Conservative leadership has plans to replace the climate change levy with a system based on how many units of carbon a company emits rather than how much energy it uses. This, they believe would incentivise businesses to go greener, sooner.

Vehicles: Conservative plans to reduce emissions from UK roads include taxing drivers on how much they use their vehicles. They have also announced that they will employ measures such as reducing the average emission of new cars to 20g/km by 2022 and set an average for all cars by 2030.

The Conservative Party has also opposed the congestion charge in London and all road pricing across the country, however it remains unclear whether they would actually abolish the charge once in power.

Labour

Energy: Having already established the department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) which has overseen the recent introduction of the Clean Energy Cash Back scheme, Labour plan to move further towards green energy generation and intend to make all homes carbon neutral by 2016. The feed-in tariff which came into affect on April 1 is a mechanism which will seek to boost investment in renewable micro-generation, offering small scale generators guaranteed, premium rates for energy fed back into the national grid. The scheme introduced by the DECC will be carried on beyond the May election with hopes within the party that micro-generation will become a typical feature of the British energy industry.

Emissions: The Labour party has already set a target of reducing CO2 emissions 60 per cent by 2050 with a more short-term target of 26-32 per cent by 2020. Unlike the Conservative plan for annual emission assessments, Labour instead wants emission targets to be set and reviewed every five years as ‘carbon budgets’. In the past Labour has supported EU proposals of reducing carbon emissions 20 per cent by 2020.

Vehicles: Famously introducing the London congestion charge, Labour wish to extend the zone around the capital and want to implement the same scheme in other British cities as a means of combating congestion and pollution. Road pricing will become a Labour mantra with plans to charge motorists for the amount of time they spend on the roads.

Liberal Democrats

Energy: Going along with the European Union, the Liberal Democrats have set the target of producing 20 per cent of all energy from renewable means by 2020 with further targets of 50 per cent by 2050. The Liberal Democrats do not however believe in the use of nuclear power and have set out that they think that the money building new nuclear facilities would be better spent on renewable energy plants.

Emissions: The Lib Dems have set out emission reduction targets of 60 per cent by 2050. Nick Clegg’s party have announced that in government they would levy a carbon tax which would be payable by all consumers not involved in the emission trading scheme, something which they believe would make a real difference from a grass roots level.

Vehicles: The Liberal Democrats have proposed a dramatic rise in tax paid by motorists in the UK with plans to raise top payments from £215 p/a to £2000 p/a in a bid designed to encourage people away from their cars and into public transport. The Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) would be scrapped for less polluting cars and duties would be halved for vehicles owned by those in rural households.

Part of the plan to entice the British public away from their cars is being reflected in proposals to invest in public transport. Public transport funding would come from road pricing and congestion charges in and around the UK’s busiest cities.

With the UK still struggling out of recession and with little good coming of the much heralded Copenhagen climate change summit, brighter news has presented itself in the recent report that the UK has over achieved on its carbon emission reduction targets.

Set by the Conservative government back in 1990, the original reduction target was to be 34% by 2020, however, recent findings suggest that this reduction will now be something nearer 36%, with a number of factors helping to reduce carbon emissions across the UK. The report, carried out by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) and released in October is already sparking debate as to whether the government is doing enough to fight climate change through carbon reduction policies.

Government action

While the government has announced that it will not go ahead with the construction of any coal power stations employing carbon capture and storage, many believe that not enough is being done to bring about a wholesale change in the way Britain produces its energy.

However, despite surging ahead with non-renewable energy programs, it would be difficult to argue that ministers in Westminster have turned a blind eye to the potential of green energy. Indeed, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has already overseen the devlopment of some of the largest off-shore wind farms in Europe.

The Clean Energy Cash Back Scheme (essentially a feed-in tariff) similarly represents a commitment to reduce carbon emissions through legislation. The DECC is already publishing papers on the future landscape of the UK power infrastructure with a grid capable of connecting various micro-generation sites across the country.

The recession factor

With the world financial crisis manifesting itself in the UK in the form of a protracted recession, this has of course had an effect on energy use with the population using less energy and therefore generating less carbon. Critics of the reports findings have highlighted that some of the carbon reduction percentiles can be accounted for by the economy and any imminent up-turn could similarly skew the figures.

In response to such assertions, Ed Milliband, minister for the DECC stated that,

“The recession will not deflect the Government’s efforts to cut emissions and move to a low carbon economy. We must redouble our efforts at home and internationally.”

Consultants Ernst & Young have released their annual global renewable energy country attractiveness indices with the big news being that China has knocked Germany from its number one spot, a position which they have enjoyed for the last seven years. The report indicated that in the lead of attractiveness are the US and China followed by Germany, India and Spain.

With various leading economies around the globe vying to become leaders in the renewable energy sector the Ernst & Young indices provides a tangible demonstration of how attractive the competing markets are to investors based on the measures taken by the respective governments. The commitments by the Chinese government to slow climate change through the reduction of carbon emissions has certainly been reflected in their rise in the investment indices.

Once the pariah of the international community with regards to fighting climate change, the Beijing government has demonstrated through legislation that they have a very earnest desire to slow the effects of climate change.

Recently the Chinese government announced 1.8 GW of solar installation throughout the vast country with investment incentivisation coming in the form of the Golden Sun subsidy scheme designed to transform the Chinese solar market from a purely manufacturing base into a world leader in solar PV installation. This, the report indicated was the key feature in China moving up the table from sixth place in 2007 to the joint number one position enjoyed today.

The report will come as an early Christmas present for the nations perched in the top 5 positions as it gives investors a comprehensive assessment of the most viable markets in which to invest based on criteria such as existing infrastructure, incentives and location benefits.

With the success of China as a potential solar PV market, analysts in the UK will not have missed the direct correllation between government action and market attractiveness, something which the report explicitly highlighted. The UK enjoyed limited success, moving up one point to sixth, an increase based on limited government action taken so far in the form of the creation of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the introduction of the Energy Act in November 2008 and the recent announcement of the Clean Energy Cash Back system, essentially a feed-in tariff to be introduced in April 2010.

The UK’s position of sixth could be bettered by the next indices published by Ernst & Young at the end of 2010 but will depend greatly on the initial successes of the UK market in the light of the newly implemented tariff system. At the present moment members of the lobby group We Support Solar are arguing that the UK government will have to increase the tariff rate if the UK is to compete with the emerging solar tiger economies with manufacturing bases much closer to home.

For more information on the Ernst & Young global renewable energy country attractiveness indices, please visit:

http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Industry_Utilities_Renewable_energy_country_attractiveness_indices/$file/Industry_Utilities_Renewable_energy_country_attractiveness_indices.pdf