Alok Sharma, U.K. secretary of state for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, talks a good game … [+]
As countries take stock of the damage caused by COVID-19, one phrase is on (almost) everyone’s lips: green recovery.
The U.K. secretary of state for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Alok Sharma invoked the mantra yesterday. Speaking to the UN’s June Momentum for Climate Change online event, Sharma said he was committed to “accelerate climate action” and was “positive about us coming out of this with a green recovery.”
Sharma, who is also this year’s president of the UN climate change summit, COP26, said the fact that the U.K. economy grew by 75% between 1990 and 2018 while cutting emissions by 43% proved green growth was possible. He added that developed nations must move beyond a “totemic” $100 billion per year climate finance goal.
Despite COP26 being delayed by a whole year until November 2021, the British hosts are certainly talking the talk on climate action. But is the U.K. leading by example—or are these worthy words simply hot air?
It’s a mixed picture. Also yesterday, news broke that Sharma’s department had again delayed final consent for two major offshore wind farms for another month, alarming renewable energy industry insiders.
One of these projects is the Norfolk Vanguard project, by Swedish developer Vattenfall. Vanguard is one half of a larger project, to be stationed off the coast of East Anglia, which when finished will have a total generation capacity of 3.6 gigawatts, sufficient to power 3.9 million U.K. homes. Vattenfall U.K. Country Manager Danielle Lane expressed concern to Forbes.com about the delay.
“The point here is that Vanguard is a really critical piece of infrastructure towards the government’s 40 gigawatts of renewable infrastructure by 2030,” Lane said, referring to the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge on green energy. “Actions speak louder than words. If you have large infrastructure projects that are ready to go, why not take that opportunity?”
To protect the Norfolk coast, Swedish developer Vattenfall has committed to laying underground power … [+]
Lane said the reasons for the delay had not yet been explained by the government, but she looked forward to seeing the rationale.
“We’re a little bit in the dark at this point and we don’t understand why,” she said, pointing out that Natural England, the non-departmental public body that assessed the environmental impact of such projects, had signed off on the plan.
As well as bringing £3-4 billion ($3.8-5 billion) of investment to the local area, Lane said Norfolk Vanguard would bring hundreds of long-term, high-skilled jobs to East Anglia.
“The other thing is the message the delay is sending,” she added. “Vattenfall is a Swedish company … we’re trying to show that the U.K. is a great place to do business. What we want to have is a consistent and stable policy framework that we can work within.”
Another concern for industry, Lane explained, is the long lead times that large projects require—with two or three years simply to build the components needed for the wind farms.
“It’s a shame because the government has said some really great stuff around the ambition towards COP next year. But offshore wind has been the heart of the strategy towards decarbonization, and it’s a little bit concerning that there seems to be this bottleneck at the moment.”
The other project delayed this week, Hornsea 3 off the coast of Yorkshire, is no less ambitious in scope. On completion it will be one of the world’s most powerful wind farms, with 231 turbines and a generation capacity of 2400 megawatts. That project has been halted several times for a variety of reasons, including that it could harm endangered seabird populations. A spokesman for Danish renewable energy giant Ørsted, which is behind the project, said the company was “disappointed” in the decision. “It’s important that momentum is maintained across the industry and we eagerly await the decision from the Secretary of State on July 1st,” the spokesperson said.
Both projects will now need to wait until July to see if they will be granted consent.
How significant are the delays? Couldn’t they be viewed as mere potholes on the increasingly green road being travelled by a once climate-skeptical Conservative party? After all, in March, the government reopened its Contracts for Difference scheme, whereby developers of onshore and solar wind farms could once again bid for government support for projects. The move, welcomed by environmental campaigners, marked the end of a five-year ban on new onshore wind projects, put in place by David Cameron’s administration in 2015.
In the area of green fuels, the government has also shown signs of proactivity, investing in centres to develop green hydrogen—revealing a tacit understanding that green electricity generation alone cannot deliver the decarbonized energy needs of the economy.
Yet still, the government continues to send mixed signals on its green commitments.
In January, a BBC investigation found that a subsidiary of the government’s Department for International Trade was putting billions of pounds into foreign fossil fuel projects. In that instance, it was revealed that U.K. Export Finance agency had backed projects that would be responsible for some 69 million tonnes of carbon a year—equivalent to the emissions produced by the entire nation of Portugal.
Just a month later, environmental activism group Global Witness revealed a British taxpayer-funded organization had invested $750 million dollars in fossil fuel projects in developing countries. In its investigation, Global Witness found that while the U.K. government had ended support for coal projects globally, the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) had spent hundreds of millions in oil and gas, including heavy fuel oil power plants in Senegal and Mali.
Perhaps no less significantly, the Financial Times reported last month that the U.K. government is opposing any moves by the European Union to incorporate climate change commitments in any future trade deals. Confirming that position, a government spokesperson claimed that adhering to climate targets “does not require an additional binding international legal commitment.”
Reacting to that news, the opposition Labour party’s Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Luke Pollard told Forbes.com the stance undermined Britain’s commitment to climate action. “There is no going back to business as usual, as business as usual wasn’t working,” Pollard said. “As a nation Britain needs to be a force for good and that means leading by example in upholding international agreements on the climate crisis and pointing towards trade that doesn’t cost the earth, protects habitats and ensures workers aren’t exploited at home or abroad.”
The overall picture, then, is confused: on green investment, the U.K. government appears to be taking with one hand and giving with the other. But ministers may find that, in order to get countries on board both with a green recovery and at COP26, consistency is king.
