energy policy lacking

Environmental groups and the renewables industry yesterday urged Gordon Brown to overhaul government energy policy if Britain is to have any hope of meeting its EU targets to combat climate change.
Green groups argue that Britain could achieve 20% by 2020 if it really wanted to. Adam Bruce, chairman of the British Wind Energy Association, said: "It is simply wrong for civil servants to now suggest that the 20% EU target cannot be met - the UK wind energy industry is confident that it can meet these new renewable objectives if the government takes the necessary measures to support it."

He said 40% of the EU's entire potential wind energy blows across Britain, but a lack of government action was preventing its proper exploitation.

Andrew Simms, head of the New Economics Foundation, said: "If renewable energy in Britain had enjoyed for decades the blank cheque that was written for the nuclear industry, today most of our electricity would be coming from a combination of wind, wave and solar power.

"If the DBERR continues to undermine progress toward the new, renewable energy economy it will potentially do even more damage than a leaky reactor."

The energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, told BBC radio that the government was on course to meet its own target of generating 15% of Britain's electricity from renewable sources by 2015. He acknowledged the EU target was more demanding.
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