It’s difficult to decide which characteristic best describes the government’s approach to climate and energy policy since 8 May; hypocrisy or incompetence.
If that seems harsh on a day when the energy secretary has announced a phase-out of coal, the most polluting of fossil fuels, then let me explain.
First, if today’s promise to phase out coal power stations by 2025 does what it says on the tin, then that would be a very good thing. But Amber Rudd added two caveats. Firstly, her department is going to consult on the policy (which is to be expected, but could change the outcome) and secondly, it will only go ahead if they’ve managed to build enough gas power in the meantime to replace old coal. And therein lies the incompetence-hypocrisy conundrum.
First, gas is not the only alternative to coal. And yet, time and again, over these past six months, ministers have evoked language and principles in their crusade against renewable energy, which they blatantly then fail to apply to gas, its ugly sister fracking and the white elephant of nuclear power.
In June, David Cameron said he wanted local communities to “have more of a say” in their local area as he sought to justify tougher planning controls for onshore wind. Yet just a few weeks later he made it clear that his government would be very happy to overrule local communities when it comes to fracking.
Rudd has, time and again, justified the decimation or complete removal of short-term, modest subsidies for the relatively new technologies of solar and wind energy, by saying that it is time for “renewable energy to stand on its own two feet” while negotiating a brand new subsidy regime lasting 35 years for Hinkley Point nuclear power station.
Cameron has signalled support at international meetings such as at the G7 meeting in Germany in June for “the elimination of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”, while presiding over the only government in the G7 to dramatically increase taxpayer handouts to oil and gas majors and cut support for clean energy.
I could go on and on. The examples of this government’s apparently double-edged approach on climate and energy policy are not hard to find. Indeed, it would be hard to find a week since May without examples.
But what about incompetence? The evidence is equally abundant.
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First and foremost, there has been a wholesale dismantling of climate and energy policies before alternative policies have been put in place. New governments sweep with new brooms. That’s democracy, and that’s politics. But this government has junked whole areas of energy policy that have taken years to put in place, and before they’ve developed any real thinking on what’s needed instead.
Take, for example, energy efficiency. If the problem – as articulated by this government – is rising consumer bills, then the only surefire solution is to invest in home insulation to bring down permanently the amount of overall energy households need by reducing heating costs (especially as our demand for electricity is still increasing).
The policy the government relied upon until recently was called the green deal and while it left a lot to be desired, it’s now gone altogether. As is the plan, negotiated between government, housebuilders and NGOs over many years for new homes to be “zero carbon” from next year, meaning that a whole generation of first-time buyers will be locked into higher energy bills.
There are rumours that remaining policies to help poorer households insulate their properties are also destined for the chop. If this happens, it means there are practically no policy measures left to promote energy efficiency, and no signs yet of any coming any time soon. That’s incompetent – energy efficiency saves households and the economy money.
So too is the gap opening up in new, homegrown power generation, because the government has killed off the quick and cheap new renewable sources such as onshore wind, and is now depending on new nuclear and shale gas, both of which are very unlikely to make any real difference to our energy security until well into the 2020s.
So why is the government’s energy policy in such a mess? Well, it’s because it’s no longer being run from the Department for Energy and Climate Change, it’s being run from HM Treasury. Rudd, whose original appointment was warmly welcomed by Friends of the Earth, is mouthing the words but the voice is that of effective prime minister, George Osborne. And Cameron, who hugged huskies and put a wind turbine on his house while in opposition, is now just a distant chair of the board.
