Britain to miss renewable energy targets
Updated on 13 August 2007
A leaked memo shows Britain will fail to meet the 20 per cent target for renewable energy.
When Tony Blair signed the UK up to the European 20 per cent target in April, Britain's fledgling renewable energy industries thought that policy had finally caught up with rhetoric.
Perhaps they would now get the leadership from government they'd always said they needed to radically shift the country's use of energy in all its forms.
Since the April summit, EU officials have been drafting a directive to share the 20 per cent target between the European nations.
British officials, it turns out, have been trying to find ways of making Britain's share as small as possible.
The leaked paper proposes ministers sign up to a series of options to minimise the impact of the target.
They should seek "maximum flexibility to minimise costs" - perhaps by counting nuclear as renewable or including investment in solar farms in Africa as part of the British share.
Ministers should consider "...statistical interpretations ... that would make it easier to achieve". Redefining the target, in other words.
The UK, it says, "has achieved little so far on renewables", so it advises ministers to aim for Britain's share to be just nine per cent. This, it says, is challenging but achievable.
The UK "has achieved little so far on renewables."Leaked memo
The civil servants are pessimistic about the future of renewables in Britain, which is why they say ministers should lobby Europe before the directive is finalised.
Britain lags behind the rest of Europe. Germany believes it can go for 27 per cent yet Britain has the best renewable resources in Europe.
Tonight a coalition of renewable industries and environmental groups has written to Gordon Brown to voice concern that officials have been working to evade Britain's contribution to the 20 per cent target.
The coalition demands Brown's reassurance that the government's intellectual capital is being invested in ways of meeting renewable commitments, not wriggling out of them.
