Tuesday 6 November, 2011. The Green Piece Column.
Just a week after the Chancellor George Osborne delivered his Autumn Statement, we take a look at what the self-proclaimed ‘greenest government ever’ has done to live up to its name.
Last week’s statement angered some environmentalists as the Chancellor revealed a number of compromised pledges and hastily reshuffled financial plans which seemed to push environmental plans off a cliff.
A report from Friends of Earth, entitled ‘“The Greenest Government Ever”: One Year On’, sought to examine the progress the coalition had made in the field of environmental sustainability one year on from (sort of) being elected in May 2010. Sadly the report’s author Michael Porritt, after examining 77 separate policies concluded; “Writing this Report has been a disheartening process. In an ideal world, I would have wanted to demonstrate to Friends of the Earth the usual mixed balance sheet one might expect after just one year. But the 77 individual items pretty much speak for themselves: the bad and the positively ugly indisputably outweigh the good.”
Autumn Statement of intent
Oh dear, so just what failures in particular stand out? In the Autumn Statement George Osborne revealed a cancelling of the 3p fuel duty increase planned for January and a reduction in the August 2012 planned increase from 5p to 3p. He also announced a new £5 billion infrastructure fund which is feared will fund road building schemes, although £400m of it has already been earmarked to spend on expanding hard shoulder running to motorways such as the M3 and M6, while at least £1 billion will be spent on rail, and another £25m is for bus companies to buy low-carbon vehicles.
Perhaps the worst of the anti-green measures announced by the Chancellor in his statement is a tax break for heavy polluters or a £250m support package for ‘energy-intensive’ industries as the Chancellor himself rather flowery put it. There was also a move to relax and quicken the process of acquiring planning permission which it is feared could lead to the loss of huge areas of green countryside.
But it is not just in the recent Autumn Statement when the government seemed to show a slide away from its greenest ever claims. It also recently announced a halfing of the feed-in tariff rates for solar systems fitted after December 12, 2011, paying a tariff of just 21p per kWh.
The cancelling of the carbon capture and storage project at Longannet, Scotland in November seemed to suggest that the Government was turning its back on the potentially carbon saving technology, this was further condemned by a report from the European Environmental Agency which suggests that the technology could actually lead to an increase in some emissions (see story). But then the go-ahead for the biggest CCS project in the UK was given, with the coal-fired Ferrybridge plant in Yorkshire (see story) set to capture the equivalent of up 100 tonnes of carbon emissions as part of a £20 million project; the equivalent to 5MW of generation.
Another environmental hiccup came in the form of tar sand oils, over which environmental charity Greenpeace accused the government of working to undermine EU legislation to prevent the most carbon-intensive fuels from entering our fuel supplies (see story). Greenpeace accused the Government of doing ‘big oils’ job for it’ in supporting Canadian tar sand oil extraction.
But it is not just tar sands which have got the greenies in a rage, fracking has upset both environmental campaigners and residents in Lancashire. Fracking is the process of drilling down into shale and rock to release natural gas. Concerns are that fracking could lead to the destruction of open countryside, water contamination and earth tremors. So far, the fracking fracas continues as Cuadrilla, which owns the Banks rig in Lancashire, continues trailing the process to release valuable shale gas.
A final black mark against the current coalition government is the threat to habitats for wildlife and rare plants posed by a review of the implementation of the EU habitat and wild birds directive between now and next March. According to the Guardian, Osborne said: "We will make sure that gold-plating of EU rules on things like habitats aren’t placing ridiculous costs on British businesses."
On a brighter note, the Chancellor did offer £200 million over two years to boost the Green Deal scheme which could help businesses and homes install new energy efficiency measures such as insulation.
Our verdict: Environmental measures not a priority
While some measures point towards progress, such as the Green Deal and more cash for low carbon buses, we can’t help but think that the overall impression is that a greener economy is just not a priority at the moment. It may not be entirely the coalition government’s fault; an overall fragile situation in Europe means that now is perhaps not the time to be grandstanding green measures if it means that the UK appears to be flashing cash it doesn’t have. An austere government means austerity is reflected in every segment of society, however there is also a case to say that the government may be using the current economic climate to quietly shove some leftover Labour ideas permanently into the ideas bin.
For us, we can be glad that there was no mention of scrapping the £5,000 plug-in car grants, but we suspect you can largely thank the lobbying power of the car makers for that. The likes of Nissan, Toyota and Vauxhall, which all have a strong UK presence, and grant-qualifying cars available, would have undoubtedly been knocking on the door of number 11 if there was a threat to the consumer incentives for electric and plug-in hybrid cars.
A full Budget statement will be due in the spring of next year, where the government will have a chance to redeem itself, or not. Based on the Statement, it does seem like we might have to agree with Friends of the Earth, and say that even if there are some positive steps forward; more than a year into governance, the coalition has little ground to claim a ‘greenest ever’ crown.
Faye Sunderland.
