Act Out In Front On Climate Change

A report by the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment has endorsed the ACT Government's implementation of its climate change policy.

Commissioner, Robert Neil's Implementation Status Report (ISR) provides an assessment of the ACT's steps so far to reduce emissions and adapt to future climate change.

The report found that the Government policy AP2, combined with greenhouse gas reduction targets prescribed by the the Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act 2010, had positioned the ACT among the world's most progressive jurisdictions in terms of mitigating the impacts of climate change.

Mr Neil said the ACT Government was responding to the challenges and opportunities posed by climate change through its targets of 90 per cent renewable energy use by 2020 and 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2020, which were the most ambitious legislative targets of any State or Territory in Australia.

REPORT FINDS POLICY A WORLD LEADER

"It is responding robustly and constructively, by prescribing legislative (the Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act 2010) greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets that are not only consistent with the IPCC's recommendations but are also the most ambitious targets in Australia," he said.

The report explored how the ACT was tracking against sector greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets; climate science implications for the Territory; the appropriateness of adaptation and mitigation policies and planning processes; how the ACT's targets and actions stood against national and international developments; and what new opportunities or challenges had emerged.

Mr Neil said that for the Territory to continue adapting to climate change and leading a sustainable future it was vital that climate change policies, including AP2 and the actions it contained, remained contemporary and was continually reviewed and updated.

Minister for the Environment, Simon Corbell said ACT Government policies had already positioned the Territory at the forefront of climate change adaptation and mitigation in Australia.

"A solar reverse auction and a wind reverse auction have already resulted in more than 240 megawatt capacity of renewable energy being secured for the ACT. The reverse auctions were so successful that the ACT Government won a prestigious Banksia Gold Award last year for the pioneering scheme," he said.

"Combined with the 45 megawatt capacity of household rooftop solar already operating in the ACT, the large-scale solar and wind farms commissioned through the reverse auctions will supply about 40 per cent of the ACT's electricity needs by 2017."

Mr Corbell said the Government would study the challenges and opportunities presented in the report and make a formal response later this year.

The Office of the Commissioner for Environment and Sustainability's Implementation Status Report: A report on the implementation of AP2: a new climate change strategy and action plan for the ACT can be accessed here.

SOURCE: PS NEWS ONLINE PUBLISHED 5 MARCH 2015

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Remember The Obstructionists

Uncontaminated Drive reduces expenses, improves the environment and by a long way moreover.Last Massachusetts Executive Willard Appendage Romney withdrew from RGGI [Narrow School of dance Gas Theory]. Gubernatorial Contestant Charlie Baker [Furtive Tea Bagger] Opposed Isthmus Wind and abandoned his platform run for Executive. Now the Flip-Flopper supports Isthmus Wind? Don't bet on it! Massachusetts is deceptive and so basic the U.S. Opt for your candidates intelligently seeing that you vote so we test out electing the Receipt of the Dinosaurs.Call for way winning on clean energyBy Patrick CassidyPCASSIDY@CAPECODONLINE.COMJune 03, 2014The press release Monday that the U.S. Developing Watch over Agency would oblige states to cut carbon emissions from real power plants by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 was cheered by Bay Call for environmentalists and Gov. Deval Patrick's control.But the impact on Massachusetts, which has been a leader in renewable energy and energy efficiency, will native be incited by what other states ought do if the policy are carried out."At the same time as the EPA significance does is model states verge on ours unwavering more of a big shadow wind," Massachusetts Border of Developing Watch over Commissioner David Burial alleged.Massachusetts, which is quality of a citizen emissions cap-and-trade program and has approved a pageant of laws to salute stick out rotate and terminate the use of fossil fuels, is Already 40 PERCENT Beneath ITS 1990 School of dance GAS EMISSIONS IN THE Decide Estate, Burial alleged.And by 2020 the state expects to be at 50 percent of 1990 levels, he alleged, accumulation that the state or has physically reached an area right mind in the new significance.A fellow citizen program to save emissions will native stretch more states in the sphere of cap-and-trade markets verge on the one Massachusetts participates in, assign to save expenses for each person, Burial alleged. In postscript, more wage war for clean energy and the technologies that stretch it will enhance support innovations Massachusetts companies are pursuing, he alleged."The superintendent has worked on the whole clear to expand the clean-energy economy all diagonally the working group," Burial alleged.Burial echoed EPA Executive Gina McCarthy's exclusion prior to in the day of the argue that revealing carbon emissions would damage the economy."OUR Pay Call for Come off HAS Amplified BY 70 PERCENT," Burial alleged about the set in the state's economic output such as 1990.Modeling for the citizen cap-and-trade program basic predicted a 1 to 2 percent mushroom in electricity prices, but prices be full of seemingly dropped by 8 percent, Burial alleged.And since declines in electricity prices in the U.S. be full of been related to natural gas prices, the Patrick control has been bullish on alternatives to fossil fuel, including wind energy and a prod to mushroom the capacity to give hydroelectric power to the state.With the pick up successes Patrick cites is a synopsis mushroom in solar energy diagonally Massachusetts from physically nonentity in 2002 to 518 megawatts nowadays. The control has set a right mind of 1,600 megawatts of solar energy installed in the state by 2020.On Isthmus Cod, solar projects be full of sprouted on rooftops and capped landfills, including finished a accepting of towns, counties and other agencies."We do equally tell this policy rotate for America assign to hydroplane the playing field," Isthmus and Chateau Thrilling Enclosure preferential projects controller Liz Argo alleged about the EPA significance.The accepting was bent in 2007 to footprint renewable energy projects in communities on the Isthmus and Martha's Chateau. It nowadays has about 29 megawatts of solar energy online or in development.The EPA's press release will equally prod Midwestern states to save emissions that end up on the Isthmus and Islands, Argo alleged. In postscript, the new requests legitimize decisions by the Isthmus Pale Certain to donate lucrative support for the accepting, Argo alleged.The buy, which buys power in maturity for electric clientele on the Isthmus and Chateau, provides energy efficiency programs for dweller businesses and land, and advocates for ratepayers, will be full of offered 3.7 million to the accepting by the end of fiscal 2015.Critics be full of argued for more decency in how the two agencies blend together and be full of questioned the compact's lucrative largesse. Cohorts, meanwhile, say the deeds of the two agencies are complementary.The accepting structure, which provides benefits on a citizen source, may well act as a model for other parts of the state seeking to overlook the EPA goals, Argo alleged.It's unsolved how the new significance will begin power plants in the state, nevertheless the property-owner of a coal-fired power plant in Holyoke announced Monday that it would go fast.A spokeswoman for NRG Drive declined to shine right on the greatly of the oil-fired plant it owns on the Isthmus Cod Canal, which has struggled to cast with other generators in too late days.In an email, NRG spokeswoman David Gaier wrote that the company supports the decline of school of dance gas emissions but uncertainties that the EPA's significance would adversely begin electricity faithfulness and regulars in absolutely states."We are purposefully reviewing the intentional significance and we gawk informal to operational with the EPA and state regulators to create suited, attainable guidelines for achieving huge emission reductions," he wrote.Burial alleged he expects the significance to ultimate permitted attacks by its critics. The EPA's ability to maximum carbon emissions was grave as a feature of law in a 2007 U.S. Vital Court shrewdness in observe of Massachusetts and other states that had sued to thrust the agency to take push."Massachusetts v. EPA in nature is the cornerstone permitted shrewdness in this pen," alleged Matthew Pawa, an naive lawyer with a introduce somebody to an area home in Brewster who has litigated one consequent clean-air gear.The court's shrewdness set up not wholly that the EPA can maximum carbon emissions but that it has the promise to do so, Pawa alleged, accumulation that the agency's ability to maximum carbon was reaffirmed by the great square in a procession he worked on that was decided in 2011.And since Pawa praised the Obama administration's shrewdness to tread informal in variable emissions from real plants, he alleged it basic be full of been by way of sooner."The industry is goodbye to broil this pointed tooth and keep score," he alleged, accumulation that if the new programming had been intentional prior to the state would be full of been by a long way enhance scheduled in transport out the changes and in commercial with the permitted domino effect. http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140603/NEWS/406030336/-1/NEWSLETTER100

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Climate Bill Is All About The Coal Hard Cash

Yesterday, Congress began the explanation that will determine our nation's energy complex. Congressmen Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced a abundant 648-page bill of lading predestined to mainly return the way we make and use energy in this avow. The "American Original Run and Relief Act" may think phobia, but it's simply all about the formality rigorous modification. Or want I say, the "coal" rigorous modification.

The bill of lading will ready a top secret supply of permits allowing the liberate of winter garden gas emissions by major polluters as split up of an emissions dwindling plan set as cap-and-trade. Natives emissions permits are concurrently practice tens or shipshape hundreds of billions of dollars annually. That's a lot of modification. And yet the bill of lading is admirably secretive about where all that assistance will go.

Quieten that is, avert for on one front: COAL.

Among billions of dollars up for grabs, the coal industry went in a straight line for a big gather together of modification. Among the assistance of followers in Congress, the coal sector has sooner than snagged at least possible a billion dollars all meeting in new subsidies to followers the development of technologies the industry promises will lessen emissions at coal-burning power plants.

That sweet bond for the coal industry is the "austerely" expenditure the bill of lading specifies so far. And coal companies are likely to struggle shipshape very modification as the explanation unfolds and deals are cut.

So where is the assistance for barely clean energy sources? Introduce isn't any. Yet.

This is austerely a union characters, I've recurrently been reminded, and how to fact the billions of dollars in obey created by the emissions permits is out of action massively faraway up for union (aka stanch explanation).

But the characters we see into the future us massively faraway reflects the specter of the birth groups laden the supposed U.S. Conditions Approve Villa, in addition to Ecological Bomb and NRDC. And with these laden green groups zit the planner, here's what's so telling: "Among BILLIONS OF DOLLARS Meeting ON THE Table, THESE Excellent Emerald GROUPS Opening THE Conditions Order Clearly Absent IT Introduce" -- or hand down yet, looked the other way because the coal industry grabbed their put together of modification.

Why didn't these greens mandate that the revenues raised from weather conditions set of laws are really invested in technologies that lessen comprehensive warming pollution? Why didn't they quarrel to make absolute that assistance aptly supports the build up of wind turbines in the American Heartland, makes levelheaded solar panels a fidelity for the whole homeowner, and secures our energy autonomy by tedious plug-in hybrid cars off set coldness in Michigan and Kentucky? Among all the speech-making about green jobs in the air about, why did no one else "requisition" that Markey and Waxman cultivate carbon revenues to send on the sunrise of the clean energy economy, transient as a authentic engine of job creation?

EDF and NRDC and the come to rest of the US CAP greens didn't quarrel for any of this, the same as for them, it bluntly isn't simply about the assistance. It's about carbon prices, set of laws, and ethics.

Totally than clash for the caring of transformative unexceptional investments that built the railroads and the divided highway highways, brought water and electricity to inexperienced America, completed microchips reduction and untrue the Internet, biotechnology, and today's wind and solar power technologies, these laden green groups bolt their sites on a laundry list of set of laws, from renewable electricity ethics to low-carbon fuel ethics, building codes to contrivance ethics. And they make backroom deals with industry to care for an with time compromised cap and transact business scheme.

Congressman Ed Markey, the man who will escort this bill of lading together with his Edifice energy subcommittee, says he understands the transformative power of unexceptional investments. Like he introduced his specter of an hallucinate weather conditions bill of lading storage meeting, Markey declared that the meeting had upgrade to "invest in the American economy and in American people, and establish an energy technology resurgence that will different the information technology point of the in the manner of decade." Markey's "iCAP" bill of lading promised to use the assistance from carbon contamination permits to "invest tens of billions" all meeting to develop and deploy "the cutting-edge low-carbon energy technologies that will power America's complex."

The union characters we see these days comprehensibly reflects a different specter of weather conditions policy, one dictated generally by the US CAP greens who bolt sooner than struck devil's understanding with the cadre of big industry squad that make up the "Ally States Conditions Approve Villa". In the role of they pay lip operation to investments in the green economy and clean technology, following give confidence comes to push and the deals are cut, the green groups in USCAP will quarrel to territory their prized arranged of set of laws, going the formality rigorous modification on the table.

"SO IF Opening Emerald GROUPS Environment THE Conditions Daybook At the moment WON'T Row TO Envision THAT Patronage IS INVESTED TO Require A Original Run Carefulness A Truth, WHO WILL? "

General feeling other mainstream green groups or the come to rest of the weather conditions movement? General feeling the youth activists who completely gathered 12,000 resonant in Washington D.C. intense clean energy and green jobs? Or will enlightened groups be on a par with MoveOn rally their millions of workers electorate to the fight? And what about Al Gore's Repower America wrestle, which is now say ads that open, "Supervision investment can return history?"

If these self-declared champions of the new energy economy don't prioritize the quarrel out of the formality rigorous modification, coal companies and other meeting of the industries of the in the manner of will be the austerely ones at the table, and an meaningful go kaput to make finicky investments in the clean energy technologies and industries of the complex will error together with our fingers.

Jesse Jenkins is the manager of energy and weather conditions policy at the Sign Shrink and the founder and crown editor of WattHead - Run Gossip and Statement

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Europe Poised To Press Ahead On Drastic Greenhouse Gas Reductions As Other Nations Lag Behind

Pressure continues to soar for European politicians to reduce to improvement reductions of greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2030.

The European Union's 2020 survive and energy package, which is stitching legislation, calls for emissions to be cut by 20 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020. In amount, the plan calls for energy efficiency savings of 20 per cent and a 20 per cent incite in renewable energy technologies.

So the European Relationship seems generally on drop to meet inhabitants targets, later this month politicians are goodbye to assert on sure advanced emissions reductions, energy savings and multiply in renewables by 2030.

In January, the European Congress, the secretarial arm of the EU, published the 2030 policy armature for survive and energy.

Despite the consequences six kick of economic dawdling, the plan includes targets to scale down EU domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent below the 1990 knock down by 2030, which would trial that Europe would meet its ambition of acerbic emissions by at smallest amount of 80 per cent by 2050.

Europe is previously a world leading light in emissions reductions and takes survive discrepancy pitifully terribly. By way of comparison, frozen the Copenhagen Parade, Canada, the U.S. and other nations very soon hold back to falling domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

Widespread greenhouse gas emissions grew astronomically between 1990, the time Europe's survive targets are based on, and 2005, the time the Copenhagen's Accord's targets are based on - making the European targets far finished inherent than inhabitants of Canada and the U.S.

In a nutshell, compared to Europe, limit other regions' efforts to scale down carbon emissions is unsympathetically sans.

Record politicians collected works in Brussels on October 23-24 to assert on new 2030 energy targets touch that a continually greener Europe middling finished complete jobs, less spiteful uncouthness, a decreased fossil fuel manage charge and increased energy reimbursement.

Out of some coal in its eastern areas, and a bit of hydro in Norway, Europe does not specific many adjust sources of energy. It is splendid to confirmation importing fossil fuels and Europeans are success fed-up of Russia either fit off its downright natural gas tap every part of January or jacking up the prices.

In amount, so of Fukushima, Germany, the EU's main economy and chief manufacturing convoluted, is retreating from nuclear power.

Despite the consequences some survive discrepancy deniers and inhabitants unbelieving of renewable energies, more in the U.K., both onshore and offshore wind and solar power are pact mounting amounts of Europe's electricity statement.

The 2030 plan as well calls for mounting the allowance of renewable energy to at smallest amount of 27 per cent by 2030 though seeing a 30 per cent incite in energy efficiency.

Three weeks at the rear the UN Live through Get ready, coercion continues to build for sure finished single-minded targets.

For pencil case, Greenpeace Global is work on Europe's politicians to reduce to a 55 per cent cut in domestic carbon emissions for 2030. Greenpeace is as well pushing for a 45 per cent allowance of renewables and 40 per cent in energy savings.

In a Greenpeace blog spot, Virag Kaufer rumored politicians essential channel to the group who self-governing them, not light the fossil fuel and nuclear industries.

"They are knocking on politicians' doors so they are frightful," Kaufer rumored.

"Their business model is dated. They haven't invested in renewable energy equally it is noticeably the way of the appearance. Noticeably, the heart of their business depends on importing blot fossil fuels from instinctive regimes and maintaining Europe's geopolitical inclination."

"Photo: Windwarts Energie via Flickr"
Tags: greenhouse gasesGHGsclimate changeglobal warmingeueuropean union2020 survive and energy packageEuropean Commissionenergy efficiencyrenewable energyCopenhagen AccordBrusselsNorwayrussiaFukushimanuclearclimate denierssolar powerwind powerUN Live through SummitGreenepeace InternationalVirag Kaufer

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The Government Has Been Nobbled Over Energy

Why Is The British Government's Energy Policy Not Delivering On Its Climate Change Targets? Because It Has Been Nobbled By The Large, Greedy Energy Companies - Yet Their Arguments Can Be Disproved.

"This is a longer version of the piece in yesterday's Guardian website. That piece however has the web links in it - sorry, lack of time."

(c) David Thorpe

The beautiful resort of Nusa Dua, Bali, is ths week the scene of a battle of world-wide significance. Yes, it's yet another UN climate conference.

We're all used by now to how these things involve the spouting of giga-tonnes of hot air which fail to turn many turbines that might result in effective action on global warming. This one promises to be only slightly different. The IPCC report issued two weeks ago was the last warning salvo fired by the scientific community at heads of government before the talks, and its most extreme warning yet, although by its very nature (the peer-reviewing and debate) it is two to three years behind the latest monitored climatic effects, showing change is happening even faster than previously thought.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who will host the talks, has singled out the United States and China, the world's top two emitters of greenhouse gases, which have no binding goals for curbs, as key countries in the process. A main opponent to the UN process has been removed in Australia following the election of Labour's Kevin Rudd as PM, and of his appointment of a former protest rock singer as Minister for the Environment and a Malaysian-born woman as Minister for Climate Change and Water, who will both work to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

But no one expects any big breakthroughs. In the 'Washington Declaration' agreed on February 16 this year, leaders from the developed world agreed in principle on the outline of the Kyoto Protocol's successor: a global cap-and-trade system that would apply to both industrialized nations and developing countries, hoped to be in place by 2009. The British position for Bali is to support this but to expect to wait at least a year for an agreement, and hope that Bush's successor will be more onboard. If, after November 4 next year, it's Hillary Clinton, then it's assumed she will sign up to such a package. After all, almost half of American states, and many big companies, including Google, are working to install renewables and trade carbon. Google co-founder Larry Page said on Tuesday that Google is to invest millons to make green electricity cost less than coal in "years not decades."

Away from the sun-kissed beaches of Indonesia, the action that's more of relevance to us in Britain is happening closer to our rain-drenched shores.

Meanwhile Back In Britain

The EU has published its assessment this week of where Europe is on the track towards its 2012 Kyoto target of reducing emissions by 8% - itself a pitiably modest target. The chart below shows the percentage each of the 26 countries and Europe as a whole is along the path. The worst achiever is at the top of the chart, Spain is leading way ahead. The UK is in the bottom half of achievers, 10th from the bottom and 16th from the top.

As a result of our poor progress, the EU says it needs to purchase emission credits from third countries and forestry activities that absorb carbon from the atmosphere and further measures. But another report this week said 20% of these credits were worthless due to double accounting.

What has been happening in Britain over the last ten years, which has caused us to fall behind our European targets on renewable energy and carbon emissions? Why has the Government seemed to say so much yet do so little? Why is the Government expecting to build more nuclear power plants, and rely on carbon capture and storage to capture the rogue gas and bury it underground or at the bottom of the sea? Why is it going to argue in Europe in the next few months that the UK must not have to reach the European target of 20% of renewable electricity by 2020? (Instead it will campaign for a grossly inefficient use of voluntary credit purchases to make up its renewables shortfall. Some say we'll be lucky to reach 10% at the rate we're going.)

The fact is that the paralysis and tardiness are the fruits of a bitter dispute at the heart of UK energy policy development. This battle sees support for new nuclear build, gas and carbon capture pitted against support for renewables, in which a feed-in law should have a rightful place. The lobbying battle has been led by the conventional energy industry giants and the nuclear industry. The UK's energy companies are mostly owned by German and French utilities (such as E-ON, RWE and EDF) - who all oppose feed-in, (some welcome the opportunity for large profits from wind farms).

These companies have successfully nobbled both BERR (the department formerly known as DTI) and the Treasury. They have not nobbled Defra, which has responsibility for climate change but not energy (that's at BERR). Defra, and many back-benchers, support a feed-in tarriff, but whenever such a question is addressed to Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks, as it has been several times this month in Parliament in debates over the Climate Change Bill, he bats it away very smartly, and talks like a robot about the Renewables Obligation, partly because the energy giants (Eurelectric et al) have mobilised a fresh campaign against feed-in tarriffs.

Pay Everyone For Generating Renewable Energy

Many and loud have been the clamours for such a tarriff over the years, from the renewables industry - e.g. the Renewable Energy Association and the BWEA - but also recently both the Conservatives and the LibDems have made it their policy. The reason for its popularity is because it works - countries which have such a tarriff have generated robust renewables industries, and it's been highly effective in increasing the amount of renewable electricity generated, combating climate change and helping countries meet EU targets.

What is the feed-in tarriff? It simply guarantees producers a fixed price for electricity generated from PVs. It was introduced in Germany in 2000, and revised in 2004 to cover the full costs involved in producing solar electricity, sparking a boom. Germany will have almost 20 times as much PV by the end of 2007 as in 2000 when there was just 44MW, according to the German Solar Industry Association. It has led to around 800,000 properties having the technology installed and 55 percent of the world's photovoltaic power is generated on solar panels set up between the Baltic Sea and the Black Forest. Just what we need here.

Instead, in the UK we have the Renewables Obligation, which is supposed to compel suppliers to purchase an increasing proportion of electricity from renewable sources. In 2006/07 the proportion is 6.7% (2.6% in Northern Ireland) and should rise to 10.4% by 2011-12, then by 1% annually for the five years following. But actually we are way behind this target. The RO has often been criticised for being ineffective, bureaucratic, slow, and in particular excluding small generators such as householders.

Which is just how the large energy producers like it - they don't want a lot of microgeneration schemes all over the country. Good grief, if everyone is making their own electricity, who is going to buy from them? They'll have to buy the amps you don't want! And the unions agree. It's worth noting that the unions are well represented in the conventional energy industry, with coal and nuclear carrying significant union membership. But the UK renewables industry has no union. Conversely, the big energy companies are all members of the only lobbying bodies the renewables industry has, their trade associations.

There have been any number of well-researched reports showing how Britain can meet and exceed its climate targets, from Zero Carbon Britain to this week's Home Truths report from Oxford University. But instead the Government will be resurrecting civil nuclear power - just as seven of the UK's 16 nuclear power plants are currently off-line for repairs and maintenance. (And they say wind power is intermittent.)

Nuclear Power Is Not Low Carbon

The comeback of nuclear power is based on the allegation that it is almost carbon-free. The Treasury has accepted evidence that its lifecycle carbon emissions are equivalent to wind power's: between seven and 22g CO2/kWh. However, extensively peer-reviewed and checked empirical analysis of the energy intensity and carbon emissions at each stage of the nuclear cycle (at http://www.stormsmith.nl/feed) has produced much higher figures. In fact, nuclear power produces roughly one quarter to one third as much carbon dioxide as the delivery of the same quantity of electricity from natural gas, i.e., 88-134g CO2/kWh. Gas-fired electricity production involves the emission of around 450g CO2/kWh. Nuclear is still lower than gas, but nowhere near wind.

However, don't expect the Government to listen to this. It has already decided, in a mind-bogglingly cavalier fashion, in advance of the announcement of the result of its consultation on nuclear power next month, that it is fine and dandy to proceed with new power stations. Even when they are so close to the sea that they are in danger in the future of flood-damage from rising sea levels; even though the fuel is free for all renewable energy, and freely delivered on site; even though, unlike nuclear power, there is no carbon-intensive supply chain; and even though the site of a wind turbine can be cleared very quickly when the turbine is decommissioned leaving no residue to take care of for tens of thousands of years.

Why? Because its policy is that the present government will not have to foot the bill for these power stations - unlike renewables, which involve some taxpayers' money. Of course taxpayers will pay, but in a roundabout way. They will pay for the clean-up. The current clean-up bill for existing nuclear waste clear up is lb73 billion (says the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority).

Is lb73 billion a bargain? I challenge anyone to say that it is. But this is: Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute report, Home Truths, says that Government spending of lb12.9 billion a year for approximately ten years would give us 80% cuts in carbon emissions, the elimination of fuel poverty, and permanent energy savings from UK homes worth lb12.3 billion a year. That's a net cost of just lb6 billion, with many more jobs created that nuclear power would yield. The average household would see their energy bills cut by at least 66%, equivalent to a lb425 annual saving at today's prices. To put this in perspective, a year ago it was reported that the cost of the Iraq war (designed to secure energy supplies) to the British taxpayer thus far had been lb7 billion.

So in the Government's armoury of policies against climate change we have discredited the Renewables Obligation, and established that carbon credits are unreliable. What's left? The EU's Emissions Trading System, and carbon capture and storage.

The Great Emissions Credits Giveaway

The energy companies have persuaded the Government to persuade Europe to create in the second round of the ETS, a new set of certificates to pretend to save carbon but make them money. For each kWh of green electricity produced, the producer can ask a competent national body to issue a green certificate. This can be traded and will be counted towards the national target in the country into which the certificate is sold - a developing country, most likely. The country from which the certificate originates will not be able to count it under its own national target achievement plan. In this way, the energy cartel vigorously defends a domestic system which blocks out everyone except the biggest investors, themselves - the reverse of what a feed-in system achieves - and lobby in Europe for a system which will undermine everyone else's renewables systems.

The most spectacular success of the Emissions Trading System so far has been to generate profits for the big energy companies. No wonder they love it. A report by Open Europe, in July 2006, found that profits were lb10.2m for Esso; lb17.9m for BP; and lb20.7m for Shell. Conversely, smaller organisations like hospitals and universities, who had been given far fewer credits, were forced to go out and buy them - while the price was still high. So, for example, the University of Manchester spent lb92,500 on EUAs.

The permits to burn fossil fuels were given away to 5,000 of the EU's biggest polluters. At one point, the price of permits rose to EUR27 per tonne, making the whole distribution worth EUR177 billion. This inflated their profits and enabled them to out-compete cleaner, less energy-hungry firms. It also enabled them to finance further lobbying in the manner described above.

If, instead, the emissions permits had been given to every EU resident, we could each have been better off by up to EUR280 a year, Irish sustainable development group Feasta has calculated. Some campaigners are currently considering whether to mount a legal objection to this great giveaway, on the grounds that the energy companies operated as a cartel, and that the emissions were part of 'the commons' belonging to all EU citizens, who had effectively paid for it through their higher energy bills. Although it's a case of bolting the stable door after the horse has escaped, the point of the challenge would be to raise awareness of the rip-off and challenge the companies' hegemony.

Burying Carbon Is Not A Serious Option

As for carbon capture and storage, the big energy companies would love to count tonnes of the gas buried as qualifying for allowances under the European Emissions Trading Scheme. Yet a draft of the European Directive on the topic, published on Thursday, and due to be presented by the Commission in January, says that although it will be included in the ETS, credits won't be allowed, on the grounds that the technology is "immature".

Neither has the European Commission has decided to impose CCS technology on coal or gas-fired power plants from a specific date, for the same reason. Furthermore, "CO2 captured and stored will be credited as not emitted under the Emissions Trading Scheme," says the draft. The energy firms will be gnashing their teeth at the thought of those potential lost Euros, and therefore won't be nearly as willing to invest in the R&D.

One high-ranking Commission official close to the work recently admitted that the Commission "has perhaps been too optimistic" on CCS and that making the technology viable is going to be "more costly and more complicated" than initially thought." says Euractiv, the independent Brussels media portal. "The January package will confirm CCS as a legitimate emission-mitigation technology fully recognised under ETS", said the Commission's energy spokesperson Ferran Tarradellas. But he added that "additional incentives may be necessary to address the currently unfavourable economics of the CCS technologies". The IPCC will be saying in Bali that there are many unknowns regarding CCS, but that it certainly has potential for use at "the high economic end" of the list of mitigation techniques. Our government has meanwhile tendered for a demonstration project and is working with Norway in the North Sea on CCS projects.

So all of the policies lobbied for by the large energy companies are of dubious value in reducing carbon emissions, yet they are about to be enshrined in law in the Energy Bill, while the Climate Change Bill, although it makes many provisions, doesn't actually contain any proper policies. What policies should they contain? In my opinion, only two central policies are required, from which all other policies and implementations could follow.

The Policies We Need

The first is the feed-in law referred to above. In another development this week (it's been a very busy week for climate policy), the World Future Council and Alan Simpson MP launched PACT (Policy Action on Climate Toolkit) on 28 November at the House of Commons. The Council had commissioned research comparing the RO with the tarriff and decided that feed-in tariff (FIT) laws have proved the most effective approach for accelerating the deployment of renewables in the electricity sector, especially on a small, local basis, and boosting the industry. This toolkit is on a website - www.onlinepact.org - that aims to help users around the world to introduce or improve FIT laws in their country or region.

The second is cap-and-share (or TEQs - Tradeable Energy Quotas). They both involve taking the choice out of consumers' hands. What? I hear you say. We can't do that! But the logic is, that educating consumers to buy energy saving products is not sufficient. As long as the products are on the market - and patio heaters and digital gadgets will be - people will buy them. Especially if they've saved money by saving energy - they're bound to spend it - and all spending involves an energy quotient.

So what do you do? You allocate a cap on the amount of carbon that can be emitted in the country, and reduce it year by year. You apportion that amount to each individual and let them spend it. Two main systems of doing this are competing for adoption. Over in Ireland, cap-and-share is the successful one, and AEA Environmental Consulting has just announced that it has won the job of producing a feasibility study on its implementation over there. Cap-and-share lets individuals choose whether to destroy or sell back to energy producers their allowances. These companies (and there aren't many) can only emit the carbon thus permitted.

Under TEQs, being trialed in several communities in the UK, individuals spend their allowances whenever they purchase energy. If they outspend their quota in a year, they must buy more off those who haven't. This system engenders more consumer awareness of how their activities use energy.

Both policy solutions take power from the energy cartel - literally - not to mention their gravy train. You can see why they don't like them.

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