Budget will be last chance to change to low-carbon economy, Tories warn

George Osborne challenges government to invest in 10 ideas to help cut carbon emissions and create thousands of 'green' jobs

Alok Jha, Green technology correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 April 2009 16.11 BST

Next week's budget will be the last chance for the government to kick-start the investment needed to meet the UK's targets for carbon emission cuts and to establish a sustainable low-carbon economy, the Conservatives claimed today .
In a speech to launch their party's green budget, shadow chancellor George Osborne and shadow energy secretary Greg Clark called on the government to invest in 10 ideas that they said would help cut carbon emissions and create thousands of new "green" jobs.
"The budget is not just an opportunity to help people now, it's also a chance to chart a new course for the future," said Osborne. "What's needed in next week's budget are policies that will not only help today, but also help tomorrow."
The ideas include a £6,500 allowance for every householder in Britain to make their homes more energy efficient and maximising renewable energy sources such as wave power, tidal power and biogas. The Tories also want to build an "internet" for electricity using smart grids that would allow demand and supply to be managed in an intelligent and environmentally friendly way. Longer-term, they call on government to fund at least three carbon capture and storage demonstration plants and consider funding a high-speed rail network in the UK to take the pressure off internal flights.
Osborne said that all recessions end and the government should think carefully what kind of recovery it wants. He said the Tory plan was "greener and more productive" and would create new jobs and sources of growth in the industries of the future.
John Alker, head of advocacy at the UK Green Building Council said: "With 27% of UK emissions coming from our housing stock, the Tories have recognised that tackling climate change starts at home. The plan to 'entitle' householders to a package of energy efficiency measures is a progressive and far-sighted policy. This scheme eliminates the upfront cost of energy efficiency and ensures householders save money on their bills from day one."
Clark said that one of the biggest sources of frustration for environmentalists was that the ambitions contained in the Climate Change Act have not been followed by urgent action from the government. "It's almost as if, since the act was passed in autumn last year the only real decision the government has taken is to approve the third runway at Heathrow which has taken us a step backwards. At a time when the Department for Energy and Climate Change is running 22 separate consultations – the time has come for the government to get on with it."
The Conservative green budget proposals were originally published in January in their paper, The Low Carbon Economy. That report outlined how the £6,500 would not be given to householders directly — instead energy companies would insulate homes at no cost to the people living in them, who would benefit from lower energy bills.
Other ideas include incentivising the National Grid to construct a new network of undersea direct current cables, enabling offshore renewable energy to be transmitted over large distance, such as from Scotland to the south east. The Tories also want to decentralise power production into small-scale local power plants by introducing feed-in tariffs. These guarantee a premium for electricity that is generated and fed into the national grid by consumers.
"As a result of failures of government leadership, British companies have less than 5% of the global market for green goods and services," said Osborne. "That's less than France, Germany, Japan or the United States. Government policies mean Britain is poorly prepared to take advantage of a market that is predicted to be worth hundreds of billions of pounds in the years ahead. Instead of leading the world on green technology, Britain is trailing far behind."
He also criticised today's announcement of an electric car strategy by the government, saying it did not contain any of the "crucial measures that are actually needed to make electric cars a mainstream reality. Nothing about building a smart grid that can manage the higher demand for electricity that will result if more people are driving electric cars."
The Tory budget plans include funding a national network of electric car charging points by giving energy companies incentives to invest early.
Osborne added: "The Labour plan … is like giving people a grant to buy an internal combustion engine, without bothering to set up any petrol stations."
The climate change and energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said: "The Tories' promises for a green recovery are a sham. Their promise of £6,500 for every household would cost at least £150bn and they have no way of explaining how it would be paid for. They just don't have the money to fulfil their clean coal pledge.
"Their ideas are pale shadows of our commitments: to smart meters, to feed-in tariffs and to support for low-carbon industries. The Tories want to cut back on public expenditure – yet in these proposals are uncosted spending plans. The Tories have no new ideas about how to tackle climate change or build a low-carbon economy. Their plans are either uncosted or reheated.
"This government, by contrast, is acting now to tackle dangerous climate change and create green jobs."