The Green agenda was sadly lacking yesterday from Ed Milliband’s key note speech. It was especially poignant seen as Ed (Minister of DECC for two years and instigator of the ambition to cut CO2 equivalent emissions by 80% by 2050 from 1990 levels) should of all people understand the urgency for us to move to a low carbon economy.
Although he stated that he believes "our environment and climate change is a crucial issue for our future" there was no outline stratgeies highlighting the importance of reducing our dependence on the consumption of fossil fuels.
Although the shadow energy and climate change secretary launched an attack on Chris Huhne's Department, echoing the complaints of many green business leaders in her condemnation of the department's inability to stop green policies being watered down. She highlighted a number of green initiatives that have been scrapped or scaled back – the Green Investment Bank, research into biofuels, zero-carbon homes, charging points for electric cars, the Green Deal, all suffering in the economic squeeze.
Mr Miliband did acknowledge there would be "upward pressure on energy prices" before insisting there was an urgent need to "call a rigged market what it is" and break the dominance of the Big Six energy companies. Although this kind of sentiment is a crowd pleaser, as we face more energy price hikes just before winter comes, if we want these companies to make the long-term low-carbon investments the UK needs, then politicians cannot simply offer indistinct threats of "crackdowns" or "break-ups". This type of threat may have inadvertently dealt a blow to energy investor confidence at a time when politicians should be doing everything they can to nurture that confidence.
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