Taskforce claims UK energy policy is "hotch-potch"
June 18, 2007
A new report by a high-level taskforce, chaired by the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Lord Patten of Barnes, claims that the present UK energy policy is a "hotch-potch" of measures unlikely to deliver, and that change is needed with respect to policy on energy security, climate change and development aid.
The report is entitled Energy, Politics and Poverty and argues that goals in all three of these policy areas can be achieved simultaneously if they are coherently pursued.
The report warns that the stakes are high and that the wrong energy policy, misaligned with goals on climate change and global poverty risks, could create "new enemies for Europe, new threats to energy supply, greater damage and worse poverty in the poorest parts of the world".
The key recommendation of the report suggests the creation of "a better UK energy policy which forces some coherence among departments which are currently pursuing separate goals".
Specifically, the taskforce recommends: a much higher level of investment in carbon capture and sequestration; investment in other low-carbon technologies; a deepening and strengthening of EU-wide energy infrastructure development; and proper planning and regulation for a nuclear rebuild, if that is to proceed.
The report also calls for "a deeper, more robust EU energy framework which delivers security of energy supplies and addresses climate change, including a tough, unified approach to Russia, much clearer UK goals in the EU, and a new compact forging co-operation with China and India, which the US can join when it is ready".
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