This, you might recall, is headed by Chris Huhne, a Liberal Democrat who was a candidate for the leadership of the party back in the day. The tone coming from his department, DECC, is refreshingly sensible and un-clichéd. Policy announcements so far are a mixed bag, though.
A scheme will be launched to insulate 3.5 million homes from 2012. It seems to be sensibly structured - the energy company pays the up-front cost of insulation then recoups it through the household's subsequent bills. As the household will be using less energy as a result of the insulation, they shouldn't really notice this. It would be even more effective if energy was priced more sensibly, so that the more you use the higher the unit price, but still.
The development of a new North Sea oil and gas field has been given the go ahead. They got the Conservative Energy Minister to announce this one, I notice. I'm deeply unimpressed. Talk of energy security is all very well, but the level of renewables in the UK is disgracefully low, the lowest in Europe. Prioritising North Sea oil and gas isn't going to change that.
On the other hand, the law that prevents local councils from selling renewable energy to the grid is being axed. Maybe the rule somehow made sense in 1975? Hopefully this will encourage more neighbourhood-scale renewable energy projects.
I also rather like Chris Huhne's speech to the Local Government Association. It couldn't be more different to Eric Pickles' mishmash of references to Tom Cruise films, the Cold War, and the World Cup, garnished with bureaucrat-bashing.
Sample of Huhne's speech:
But at the same time everyone here understands the over-riding urgency of tackling climate change. We have, through the Climate Change Act, a legally binding requirement to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. What we need to do now is to construct a new partnership between local and central government, which enables us to meet these goals in the fastest and most cost-effective manner possible.
Simple as that. The previous government passed the Climate Change Act, then ignored the urgency of actually doing anything to make that 80% cut.
One major environmental opportunity seems to have been missed by the coalition. I was disappointed not to see a carbon tax in the budget, which could have gradually replaced Value Added Tax (a very blunt instrument for taxing consumption). As well as raising much-needed revenue and not being as intrinsically regressive as VAT, this would have boosted the low carbon economy. Which a new report tells us is one of the few sectors of the economy growing and creating jobs during the economic doldrums. Of course, the decision to reform VAT in this way would have to come from the Treasury, which has no remit or apparent interest in the environment.
Sadly, I also suspect that a carbon tax could fall foul of the World Trade Organisation's paranoia about protectionist trade barriers. Horrifying but true, the WTO does not accept that countries should be able to set their own environmental standards.
To digress a bit, I have long thought that environmental policy is dealt with oddly in the current central government departmental structure. On the one hand, environmental impact and in particular climate change should be consistently embedded in policy across all departments - especially you, Department for Transport. On the other, policies specifically to mitigate and adapt to climate change should really be concentrated in one department, to avoid duplication. I think DECC is intended to do this, but its remit overlaps somewhat with DEFRA (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which includes the Environment Agency), CLG (Communities and Local Government) and BIS (Business, Innovation and Skills).
Shorter post today as its Friday and so hot that my brain has slowed right down. Have good weekend. Coming up next week... Social housing! The Big Society! Transport policy! And so much more.
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