Cameron’s green words not matched by action

By Meg Hillier MP, shadow energy secretary

The independent committee on climate change (CCC) is reporting today on the Tory-led coalition’s progress towards a low-carbon economy.

The report proves what Labour has been saying all along: that the Prime Minister’s fine words, and the wild promises made by his energy secretary Chris Huhne, are worthless. Britain’s progress on tackling carbon emissions has stalled, despite the economic downturn. It has been a wasted year. Some initiatives, such as insulating people’s homes, actually slowed down in 2010. Ministers should hang their heads in shame.

It was right that the government signed up to the CCC’s ‘fourth carbon budget’, which commits the UK to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 80% relative to 1990 levels by 2050. What’s lacking is not the targets, but the means to achieve them. It is increasingly clear that the government lacks a robust action plan to meet its obligations on climate change. Ministers talk a good game, but there’s nothing to back it up.

This absence of a plan is not only a tragedy for the environment; it is also a wasted economic opportunity. Britain could be leading the world in green innovation, technology and jobs. Our green companies could be growing and expanding into international markets. They could be leading the way out of the economic downturn, and helping to rebalance our economy towards science, technology, engineering and manufacturing. Instead, they are being beaten by our international competitors.

The Financial Times reported yesterday, under the headline ‘China and Germany launch green initiative’, that:

“Germany and China are planning a big expansion of joint research and investment in green technologies, including production of electric cars in China and development of carbon-capture systems. A series of business and inter-governmental agreements were signed between the world’s two largest exporters in Berlin on Tuesday after Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, chaired joint government talks. Including a contract for 62 Airbus A320 aircraft, the total value of the Sino-German deals was put at about bn – dwarfing the £1.4bn (.2bn) of trade agreements with British companies signed when Mr Wen was in the UK on Monday.”

Some small and medium-sized solar companies face closure because of the government’s botched policy of ‘feed-in tariffs’, a point made at PMQs yesterday, which the Prime Minister was unable to answer.

Later today, after addressing a conference on off-shore wind power, I am visiting Cammell Laird in Birkenhead on Merseyside. They were the first shipbuilders to use iron and steel in shipbuilding, the first to manufacture a screw-driven ship, and the first all-welded ship. They built HMS Ark Royal. Today, as well as traditional shipbuilding and repair, workers at Cammell Laird are manufacturing off-shore wind turbines for use in wind farms around the coast of the British Isles. They are a great example of a company born in the high-carbon age adapting to the low-carbon future. The workers there represent the kind of high-skilled manufacturing jobs we need in modern Britain.

My colleague John Denham has detailed in a speech last night the approach we now need to get the economy moving. As he rightly points out, low-carbon technology, and green companies, should be at the heart of the government’s plans. It is a disgrace that they are not. Labour has played a constructive role during the passage of the energy bill. Some of the ideas it contains – such as a ‘green deal’ to encourage home insulation – were lifted from Labour’s manifesto. But ministers have adopted a lackadaisical approach. They’ve been unwilling to listen to Labour suggestions for ways to beef up the bill. The real danger now is that government initiatives such as the green deal, or green investment bank, happen too slowly (if at all) to have any real impact on climate change.

The CCC report today suggests ministers are coasting, at the very moment we need nothing short of a green industrial revolution, with all the entrepreneurship and invention of previous industrial revolutions. Labour is listening intently to the clean technology sector, and hearing how the next Labour government can help green firms with investment in R&D, regional support and international trade deals. The Labour policy review is investigating what our approach should be in 2015. One thing is clear: we can’t afford another wasted year under these Tory and Lib Dem ministers who seem to think tackling climate change is a low priority.

Meg Hillier MP is shadow energy secretary.