Tory 'blue crap' means UK is falling behind in global switch to clean energy

The government says that it wants a sustainable, secure and affordable energy system. Unfortunately, week-by-week since the general election, and now with the budget, it has made statements or policy changes that take us further away from that goal, and put us increasingly out of step with the rest of the world.

We have had the ending of subsidies for onshore wind farms – our cheapest low-carbon electricity resource – meaning that 250 cheap, clean, indigenous power projects will no longer be built.

Reducing energy consumption is the cheapest way to reduce costs and carbon emissions, yet more than half of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s budget cuts are set to fall on energy efficiency measures, removing £40m from the £220m pot.

 There is the selling off of a majority share in the Green Investment Bank, a means to investment in promising low-carbon technologies that private investors (and presumably now the GIB too) will not touch.

And on Wednesday we have the hypothecation of vehicle excise duty towards a road fund, which can be expected to increase car use, rather than linking it to better public transport and/or help for cycling. The budget also sees the end of the exemption of renewables from the climate change levy, a tax which was introduced to help investment in renewables.

 On the other side, the government has presented powerful support for fracking – which is going down very well in Lancashire – and for nuclear, in particular pledging extortionate support for the Hinkley C power station that looks increasingly unlikely to be built, even as support is withdrawn from cheaper onshore wind farms that could be built now.

 This simply does not add up to a credible energy policy. It reduces the chances of meeting our various legal requirements, and presents serious political risk to investors, which in itself makes energy more expensive.

 As the Committee on Climate Change asked when presenting its latest progress report to parliament: what does the government intend to do to ensure its legally binding targets are met given that virtually all low-carbon measures are due to expire during its period in office?

Government support for ideological ‘blue crap’ over rationality is putting the UK increasingly out of step with the global energy transformation that is taking place partly in response to climate change and air pollution, but also to smart technology that allows people to generate energy more cheaply than utilities can.

 It puts in jeopardy Britain’s ability to derive social, economic, security and environmental benefits from the transformation. Increased renewable energy use and energy efficiency improvements in Denmark, Germany and California have led to less fossil fuels being bought and conventional energy utilities losing profits and having to reshape their business model.

But this has been good for citizens, with falling wholesale electricity prices, increased jobs and improvement to the wider economies.

Unsurprisingly other countries, and more US states (such as New York, Hawaii and Minnesota), are implementing similar policies. Nations that already have great renewable resources – Norway, Switzerland, Austria for example – are expanding them.

And then finally, there are countries like Australia, where rapid energy decentralisation is happening despite government policy, due to simple economics. However, it is recent developments in China (and to a lesser, but still important, extent, India) that have really swung the future of the global energy system firmly towards smart, decentralised and renewable systems.

China’s long term planning on renewables and energy efficiency means it has been able to announce a target of peaking its carbon emissions by 2030 and ideally earlier, at a reported cost of over $6tn (£4tn).

 This is a major commitment from what will be the world’s biggest economy, and a huge development from its position at the Copenhagen climate summit just six years ago. It is made possible by a complete rethink of the institutional and governance basis of energy.

 Sadly, China’s foresight and investment in the future is the complete opposite of what we have in Great Britain. With government seemingly uninterested in evidence-based or even coherent energy policy, an extra responsibility falls on citizens and communities.

If government is blocking logical policy with ‘blue crap’, social capital will have to lead ministers in the direction they should be taking.

 Switch to a smaller energy supplier, preferably one offering local or renewable-only tariffs, and complain to Ofgem if it is difficult to do so; join a local community energy group and/or put your spare money in a crowd-sourcing opportunity for energy projects that pay good returns, or an ethical bank; buy a solar thermal heating system if you can afford it; insulate your house if you have not already done so.

Stand for local election, lobby your MP – anything to invigorate public debate to demand more transparency over decision-making and more stakeholder input. Energy policies and investment in much of the world have taken a fundamentally different turn, and Britain is not on board. We are going to be left entirely behind unless we start to embrace change and move with the prevailing tide.

theguardian.com