EU serves up climate orders

There is a lot of moaning about this in the press today. The European Commission has said all 27 member countries have to get 20 per cent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020.

The UK is on track to do 15 per cent by then, so there’s going to be some real work to do.

The Times reckons this will cost the UK taxpayers £6bn.

But for f*ck’s sake – the taxpayer has to fork out for the Olympics (£13bn plus) and then the idiots at Northen Rock (£50bn ish) ballsing up at their jobs.

So this seems like a pretty small deal to Greenbang.

Anyway – media hungry hippo, the Carbon Trust, of course has its say on the matter.

“This powerful package of measures has put Europe firmly in the driving seat of international action on climate change and has quite rightly raised the bar on the UK’s renewable energy ambitions. The measures announced for the next phase of the EU ETS are very welcome as they will increase and firm up the price of carbon – essential if we are to drive investment in low carbon technologies at the scale required to deliver the deep carbon cuts necessary to mitigate the impact of climate change.

“The target announced on renewables for the UK is also extremely welcome given our huge potential across a range of technologies. It should catapult renewables from a niche provider, currently supplying 2 per cent of the UK’s energy needs, to a mainstream energy player by 2020. As well as delivering carbon reductions, a dramatic expansion of renewables will create significant economic opportunity as new technologies, such as offshore wind, could be worth at least £2 billion a year to the UK economy by 2020.

“However, meeting this seven fold increase in renewables will be a major challenge for the UK and will require well thought out policy measures for renewable electricity, heat and transport to ensure that this target is met and the UK reaps the benefits.”