Posted by jamie — 13 October 2009 at 4:45pm
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How the Sunday Times reported the story
'BAA
to give up on third runway' ran the headline in this weekend's Sunday Times and
with the recent good news about Kingsnorth delay, there was a moment when I
thought it was my Christmas and birthday presents rolled in to one. But unpick
the details and unfortunately it's not quite the prize it appears to be.
Posted by jamie — 6 October 2009 at 4:39pm
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Some promising news from the Tory party
conference in Manchester,
where they've pledged to dump plans for Heathrow's third runway as part of
their election campaign package. "We are absolutely firm on our opposition
to expansion at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted," shadow transport minister
Julian Brazier told the Evening
Standard today. "It will definitely be in the manifesto."
It's great to hear their commitment being
reaffirmed as it shows how isolated the government is on this issue. But
there's a long way to go between promising to include it in the election
manifesto, being able to form a government and then actually getting round to
reversing the decision. Reports from the conference say that the Heathrow
pledge in Theresa Villiers' speech received a polite smattering of applause,
but her promise to crackdown on cowboy clampers roused the audience further
still. Make of that what you will.
The Conservatives Low Carbon Economy paper published today is focused on three important elements of energy policy, relevant to the politics of the current energy debate. They are:
Energy Security
A policy beyond the EU Emissions Trading Scheme for coal
Kick-starting Renewable Energy
In this briefing we analyse their policies and conclude that, whilst the Tory proposals are not the final word and can be improved, they do put the weakness of the government's position in focus.
Posted by jossc — 22 December 2008 at 3:51pm
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Ed Miliband demonstrated the confusion at the of the heart of the government's energy and climate change strategies this morning when he refused to rule out new coal plants which don't capture and bury their emissions – just weeks after his own advisers warned there was no future for these power plants.
He attacked Conservative plans for the introduction of green standards for power stations that would rule out the dirtiest coal plants like E.ON's for Kingsnorth, as "knee jerk" and "not thought through". Apparently, he's happy to play party politics with coal and climate change, just days after he called for a people-powered movement on global warming. Hardly the way to inspire action on the most important issue of our time.
We've been hearing likely sounding noises for a while now but today, the Conservatives have formally announced that they'd say no to a third runway at Heathrow, and yes to a high speed
rail link between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds instead.
And so I find myself a bit befuddled to be wholeheartedly agreeing with a Tory party spokesperson, Theresa Villiers. She said:
Reacting to a story in today's Guardian newspaper containing details of a Conservative proposal to scrap plans for a third runway at Heathrow and instead invest heavily in high speed rail, Greenpeace Executive Director John Sauven said:
"This announcement puts real pressure on Gordon Brown and his new transport secretary. The Conservatives have recognised that decisions taken now on high carbon projects like new runways and coal fired power stations will make or break our chances of tackling climate change in the future.
We're used
to having some unusual people descending on our offices, but today's visit by
David Cameron and several other members of the shadow cabinet is the most
leftfield (or should that be rightfield?) visitation for some time. But they were
here to launch a new policy that uses many of our own demands for renewable
energy, a vital component in the struggle to limit the impacts of climate
change.
David Cameron will today visit the Greenpeace direct action warehouse to announce a new policy that would see householders receive a guaranteed premium price for any renewable electricity they generate.
A new Conservative paper - released today - looks to adopt Greenpeace proposals designed to kick-start a local energy revolution by making the costs of installing technologies such as domestic solar power much more affordable, while ensuring householders who generate clean energy get a higher price for the electricity they feed into the grid.
