Since coming into office in 1997, New Labour has overseen a rise in overall carbon emissions. The use of coal in power stations, the most carbon intense of all fossil fuels, has risen. Centralised power stations, which waste two thirds of the energy they produce, still account for the vast majority of our energy production. The government is now set to miss its own emissions targets.
The problem isn't a scientific one – the technologies we need already exist, and are proven - but a political one. Tony Blair's rhetoric on climate change can be admirable, but hot air is all he has managed to generate.
The government has spectacularly failed to deliver on its 2003 commitments to renewable energy. It has done nothing to encourage wave and tidal energy projects, has cut financial support for micro-renewables and is winding down its support programme for solar energy six years early.
It has failed to give grants for the second round of offshore wind developments, failed to alleviate the cost of connection to the National Grid and failed to aid development of combined heat and power. The government has also cut back on community power schemes for small scale renewables two years early.
Worse, Tony Blair's 2006 Energy Review was just a rubber stamping exercise for a decision that had already been taken: to build a new generation of nuclear power stations. Despite the nuclear industry's carefully orchestrated PR campaign, nuclear power which won't stop climate change.
The review ignored the advice of government departments, leading experts, industry and the public. It directly contradicted the government's own 2003 white paper, which declared that the cheapest, safest and easiest ways to combat climate change were "reducing the amount of energy we consume, together with a substantial increase in renewable energy." Investing in new nuclear power stations, they said, was the wrong answer. It would guarantee "that we would not make the necessary investment in both energy efficiency and renewables."
Instead of launching a spin operation in support of nuclear, the government needs to take real action against climate change: by sticking to the commitments it made to renewable energy and energy efficiency in 2003, and by making a quick and coherent transition to a decentralised, cheap and secure energy system.
And if the UK fails to deliver at home, how can it expect to put pressure on other governments internationally?
What’s really needed is a government that will create policies of real substance, and that will commit proper resources to preventing climate change. A government, in short, that will deliver a new kind of power. Is anyone out there up for the challenge?
