Budget paints in green and brown Skip to main content

Budget paints in green and brown

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
Sun and wind turbine The Green Investment Bank was intended to stimulate renewables - but will it?

Budget 2011

A minimum price for carbon and more cash for the Green Investment Bank (GIB) are among the Budget's tools to encourage a UK green energy expansion.
Last year, initial capitalisation was set at £1bn; this Budget will see that increased to £3bn. But GIB will only be able to borrow money from 2015.
The Treasury will delay tax increases on petrol and air travel, and will not yet tax private jets.
A "fair fuel stabiliser" will balance taxes between oil firms and drivers.
Chancellor George Osborne's final measure - a surprise, and one heavily applauded from the government benches - was to announce a 1p cut in fuel duty from 6pm Wednesday.
From now on, he said, the "fuel escalator" that hikes prices every year will cease to operate.
Instead, when oil prices are high, oil companies will pay extra revenue to the Treasury; if prices fall, motorists will pay more and the companies less.
"That's the fair fuel stabiliser, and the result for Britain's hard-pressed families," Mr Osborne told MPs.
He said moves to reform air taxation had been hampered by the realisation that some of the proposed changes - such as taxing passengers rather than aeroplanes - would be illegal.
Capital idea

“Start Quote

There's almost nothing in this Budget to protect the environment and spark a clean-tech jobs boom”
John Sauven Greenpeace
The Green Investment Bank is designed to be a central plank of the UK government's policy of moving towards a low-carbon society, allowing investors to raise money for clean energy projects that commercial lenders would be reluctant to fund.
The £3bn initial figure for capital is considerably higher than outlined by the chancellor last year.
The additional sums will come, the government hopes, from sale of assets, such as the high-speed rail link between London and the Channel Tunnel.
The bank will begin operating next year, and the chancellor said private capital plus government injections should boost capitalisation to £18bn over the lifetime of this parliament.
But it falls a long way from the £550bn investment that could be needed over the decade to 2020 in order to meet targets on climate change, energy efficiency and renewables.
The figure was calculated by the commission that set out parameters for GIB last June.

FULL BUDGET DOCUMENTS

PDF download Budget 2011[1.1 MB]
Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader
Some analysts fear the bank will not be able to do its job if it is effectively tied to the Treasury until 2015.
"Delaying [the power to borrow] until the economy has recovered is like a doctor waiting for a seriously ill patient to recover before giving him life saving medicine," said Ed Matthew, director of Transform UK, the business alliance behind the campaign for a GIB.
"Commitment to set up a proper public green bank is to be strongly welcomed, but this decision on borrowing drives a dirty truck straight through the heart of the government's growth strategy.
"Green growth is the key to economic recovery."
Soft floor The announcement of a carbon floor price, meanwhile, sets the UK apart from other countries in the EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS).
The market carbon price has been bumping around 15 euros (£13) per tonne for several years, which is generally accepted as being too low to drive significant innovation.
The UK will now support the price for the electricity generation sector. It will be set at £16 per tonne from 2013, rising to £30 per tonne by 2020.
OpenHydro tide turbine (BBC) Current incentives are designed to boost technologies such as tidal power - but progress is slow
The low market price has principally arisen because the recession caused a major fall in greenhouse gas emissions across the EU, creating an effective surplus of emission allowances.
Environmental groups warned the floor price could hand a windfall to existing nuclear operators.
But Vincent de Rivaz, CEO of energy multinational EDF Energy that is among companies planning to build new nuclear power stations in the UK, hailed it as a step forward.
"The carbon price floor is important for all low carbon technologies as it restores the carbon price to what was originally intended.
"It will support the economics of renewables and carbon capture and storage, and can reduce the need for specific measures to support those technologies.
"For nuclear, helping to restore the carbon price to what was originally intended is important to encourage investment in existing plants and in new build."
However, there are moves at European level to tighten caps on emissions, and this could mean that the carbon price rises beyond the minimum levels set in the Budget.
Surveying the Budget overall, executive director of Greenpeace UK John Sauven, said that it did not match up to the Coalition's declared ambition of being the UKs "greenest ever government".
"George Osborne and his officials have crafted a budget that sabotages that ambition," he said.
"There's almost nothing in this Budget to protect the environment and spark a clean-tech jobs boom.
"As things stand, [David Cameron will] leave office with Britain still hooked on oil and China and California surging ahead in the race to build the low carbon technologies that should be developed here at home."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12832192
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chronology of the Press in Burma

1836 – 1846 * During this period the first English-language newspaper was launched under British-ruled Tenasserim, southern  Burma . The first ethnic Karen-language and Burmese-language newspapers also appear in this period.     March 3, 1836 —The first English-language newspaper,  The Maulmain Chronicle , appears in the city of Moulmein in British-ruled Tenasserim. The paper, first published by a British official named E.A. Blundell, continued up until the 1950s. September 1842 —Tavoy’s  Hsa-tu-gaw  (the  Morning Star ), a monthly publication in the Karen-language of  Sgaw ,  is established by the Baptist mission. It is the first ethnic language newspaper. Circulation reached about three hundred until its publication ceased in 1849. January 1843 —The Baptist mission publishes a monthly newspaper, the Christian  Dhamma  Thadinsa  (the  Religious Herald ), in Moulmein. Supposedly the first Burmese-language newspaper, it continued up until the first year of the second Angl
Post a Comment
Read more

Thai penis whitening trend raises eyebrows

Image copyright LELUXHOSPITAL Image caption Authorities warn the procedure could be quite painful A supposed trend of penis whitening has captivated Thailand in recent days and left it asking if the country's beauty industry is taking things too far. Skin whitening is nothing new in many Asian countries, where darker skin is often associated with outdoor labour, therefore, being poorer. But even so, when a clip of a clinic's latest intriguing procedure was posted online, it quickly went viral. Thailand's health ministry has since issued a warning over the procedure. The BBC Thai service spoke to one patient who had undergone the treatment, who told them: "I wanted to feel more confident in my swimming briefs". The 30-year-old said his first session of several was two months ago, and he had since seen a definite change in the shade. 'What for?' The original Facebook post from the clinic offering the treatment, which uses lasers to break do
1 comment
Read more

Is 160 enough? One Indian man's family

By Sumnima Udas , CNN October 31, 2011 -- Updated 0857 GMT (1657 HKT) Ziona, center, with his has 39 wives, 86 children and 35 grandchildren in rural Baktwang village, India. STORY HIGHLIGHTS One man in India is the patriarch of a family of 160 in rural India Ziona, who only goes by his first name, has 39 wives, 86 children and 35 grandchildren. Ziona's father, Chana, founded the Christian sect in Baktwang that promotes polygamy "I never wanted to get married but that's the path God has chosen for me" Mizoram, India (CNN) -- The world's population hits 7 billion this week, but Ziona, the patriarch of what may be the biggest family in the world, is not bothered. "I don't care about overpopulation in India ... I believe God has chosen us to be like this (have big families). Those who are born into this family don't want to leave this tradition so we just keep growing and growing," he says with a smile. Ziona, who only goes by his f
Post a Comment
Read more