UK Says Big Changes Needed To Meet Climate Targets

Peter Griffiths PlanetArk 28 Jul 10;

Britain may need to double its electricity supply and virtually eliminate emissions from power stations by 2050 if it is to meet legally binding climate change targets, the government said on Tuesday.

Announcing the coalition's first annual energy statement setting out its policy, Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said the "era of cheap, abundant energy is over," and the world must switch to alternative power sources.

Industry, heating and transport will use more electricity instead of oil and gas as the government seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels.

Failure to build a low-carbon economy would leave Britain vulnerable to volatile oil prices, more reliant on imports and exposed to insecure energy supplies, Huhne added. The statement set out 32 ways to move away from fossil fuels and become more energy efficient.

"We must find ways of making energy go further," Huhne said. "Even as we reduce overall demand for energy, we may need to meet a near doubling in demand for electricity."

Energy bills will "rise considerably" in the coming years, the report said, although Huhne said it was hard to put a figure on the expected rises.

Plans for new "smart" electricity meters that allow people to monitor their consumption more closely could be brought forward to 2018 from 2020.

While much of the statement's contents were already known, Huhne said bringing all the ideas together would create "an overarching framework" to guide business and consumers.

The government promised to reform energy markets, build a more modern electricity network, make buildings more efficient and create a Green Investment Bank to support low carbon projects.

Huhne acknowledged the scale of the energy challenge.

Britain is committed to sourcing 15 percent of its total energy needs from renewables including wind, solar and tidal power by 2020. That amounts to a sevenfold increase from current levels. Renewables are also seen generating 30 percent of the country's electricity, up from about 5.5 percent today.

The problem is exacerbated by the scheduled decline in existing oil, gas and nuclear capacity in the next 15 years.

"We lose a third of our coal plants by 2016 ... we lose much of the rest of the coal plant as a result of the emissions reduction directive coming in toward the end of the decade, and we are due to lose most of the nuclear plant by 2023," Energy Minister Charles Hendry told a news conference.

Huhne said the previous Labor government left a poor legacy on energy policy.

But Labor's energy spokesman, Ed Miliband, dismissed the statement as "rhetoric without substance."

"What the secretary of state didn't tell us is that on a whole range of issues he is going backwards, not forwards compared to the actions of the last government," Miliband said.

(Editing by Jane Baird)