Responding to today's report by the ippr, which says that the opportunity to create up to 70,000 UK jobs in the offshore wind industry could be lost due to a lack of government support, Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said:
"The renewable energy sector - which could provide tens of thousands of jobs - received nothing in the government's fiscal stimulus package.
"Gordon Brown personally pledged that the UK would meet its legally binding EU renewable energy target for 2020 but we're already going to miss the targets for 2010. If these targets are going to mean anything then offshore wind needs an urgently needed boost in the budget.
"Then Brown must remove the barriers preventing renewable energy development such as planning delays, and a lack of skills, grid connections and UK supply chain. Making the most of the UK's wind, wave and tidal resources would give us clean, secure energy as a key part of building a low carbon economy."
The Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) report published today said that without a rapid expansion of offshore wind capacity the UK will struggle to achieve its legally-binding target of 15 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2020.
It also says that without greater government support, the opportunity to create up to 70,000 long-term jobs in parts of the country where they are needed, and its associated export potential, will be lost.
Despite having the greatest offshore wind potential of any country in the world, the UK is poorly placed to benefit, says the new paper. Only 700 people are currently employed in the sector and there is only one UK-based factory that manufactures parts for wind turbine parts.
The ippr recommends that the UK government learns from countries such as Denmark, Spain and Germany, who have all been successful in developing a local onshore wind industry. An ‘offshore wind investment programme' could achieve this, the report argues.
In recent weeks the CBI and Renewable Energy Association have both called for greater government action.
Research by nef (the new economics foundation) published on 30th March 2009 found that new funding for greening the economy amounted to just 0.6 per cent of the UK's total stimulus package. Gordon Brown recently claimed to the House of Commons liaison committee that around 10 per cent of the UK package was directed towards 'environmentally important technologies'. While nef found new and additional spending on a green economy comes to just £120 million, bonuses paid to staff at RBS - which is now almost entirely publically owned - were around seven times greater. And the car industry is set to receive £2.3 billion - over 20 times as much as new government investment in a green new deal.
The report can be read on the IPPR website.
ENDS
Greenpeace press office: 020 7865 8255
