Lib Dems, Energy and Climate Change

The Lib Dems will be gathering in September in Brighton for a party conference that should be absolutely sizzling. Cometh the hour, cometh the opportunity. Their ranks have swelled, one of their two opposition parties is in disarray and the British people are waking up to what the austerity budget has done to our economy made all the more fragile by a Brexit that should never have happened in the first place.

Into that fray I would like to presumptuously submit an idea. I would like to see the UK synchronise or consolidate its policies around energy and climate change.

Consider the following:

At the moment the country has neither an energy or climate change policy. What it has on both those fronts is simply a reality that’s not very promising.

We rely on coal — the most damaging of all fossil fuels — for 25 percent of our energy. While coal production is expected to trail off significantly over the next ten years, we are still emitting way too much C02 into the environment.

We also rely on imports from France for 7 percent of our electricity. That’s not a great statement on British energy policy that we can’t generate enough electricity to power ourselves. More importantly though, it remains to be seen what becomes of the pricing of that French electricity once Brexit is finalized.

But don’t despair, there is always nuclear. The current nuclear capacity in the UK is nearing the end of its life cycle. But that’s OK we will be able to rely on a new plant in Somerset called Hinkley Point C. That is, if the French ever get around to agreeing to build it, and one more small point, if the new technology the French are proposing is found to be safe. (I know, I know there were headlines today indicating the plant is on the verge of approval. We’ve seen those before I’m afraid.)

There are two problems with nuclear. In the ten to 15 years it takes to build a reactor, the associated manufacturing and transportation components of the construction are polluting the landscape like mad.

And when you’ve finally gotten it built, you end up with something that is very safe until it’s not safe at all. The spoils of Fukushima are still being felt by geiger counters on the beaches of the Northwest United States.

So if you agree with all that, then what should we do instead?

Here are my ideas.

Stop fracking. It’s the ultimate double dip in environmental damage. To get a pollutant, you inject chemicals into the natural landscape to disturb the subterranean landscape and reap whatever whirlwind that may come your way.

Let the country’s nuclear capability become obsolete and don’t build any new ones.

Throw your energy into making our renewables sector capable of meeting all our energy needs. It is possible. Solar and wind have already proved their worth, unfortunately the current government isn’t keen on subsidising the renewables industry. (By the way, there is new technology available to make solar productive even in times of limited sunlight.) There is another form of renewable energy that doesn’t get enough attention — wave capture. The amount of wave energy that flows across the northern tip of this nation is equal to all oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. There is already a wave capture industry in UK capable of moving from prototype to commercial if the right amount of investment was steered its way.

And where will all the money come from to fund this massive change in approach. Well believe it or not there are economic models in place already that show targeted amounts of private/public money funnelled in the right direction can generate an appropriate return for something of this nature. If the private sector sees a government genuinely enthusiastic about accomplishing something this massive, the capital will appear.

But let me close with what I think is the most important point. If we looked only at newspaper headlines we might believe we are waging a pretty effective war against climate change. Earlier this year we had the COP21 agreement in Paris, every developed economy has set targets to reduce pollution and large corporate delight in extolling their environmental credentials by cutting down on copy paper and turning the lights off.

But Mother Nature doesn’t read the papers and she certainly can’t be impressed with our efforts when the world is already in a huge environmental mess. Water resources are being mismanaged around the world, birds die when they fly through the smog of Beijing, and tropical forests from Brazil to Malaysia have been deforested to cultivate palm oil with which to make bio fuels so we can keep polluting.

We need to get real. We need to stop believing we’re doing something, when in fact we’re only making matters worse.

The Lib Dems have the instincts and intellect to put together a policy that addresses these things. Otherwise there won’t even be a planet to leave our grandchildren.