Policy News

Friday 02 January 2009

The energy secretary Ed Miliband has labelled 2009 as a "crucial year" in British and European action to tackle climate change in a New Year message celebrating creation of the new Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Mr Miliband said 2008 had been "historic" for the UK in moving towards more low-carbon energy, with agreements in Europe on measures including the Renewable Energy Directive, stronger emissions trading systems.

And in the UK, new Climate Change and Energy Acts were reflected in industry by "strong growth" in the renewable energy industry.

The secretary of state for energy and climate change highlighted the forthcoming Copenhagen international summit as a key focus for this year. The summit will see world leaders meeting in the Danish capital in December to hammer out an international climate change deal to follow on from the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.

The secretary of state said: "We have seen significant progress during 2008 in our goals of developing secure, affordable and clean energy, and tackling the threat of global warming. In 2009, the world will meet again to agree a new international deal on climate change, while in the UK we will be laying out the groundwork for long-term energy efficiency improvements and carbon reduction measures.

"However 2009 will be a crucial year when it comes to negotiating a meaningful, binding climate change deal in Copenhagen. There is still much to be done, but I'm confident we can achieve a global deal."

Some of the key highlights for the new Department for Energy and Climate Change in 2008 included securing new targets for the UK to cut greenhouse gases by 80% before 2050 through the Climate Change Act.

The Department was created just three months ago, but has already taken some big decisions such as the plan to bring in feed-in tariffs to offer easier financial subsidies for small-scale renewable energy projects, and the decision to make smart meters mandatory.

Under the new Energy Act, the existing Renewables Obligation subsidy system is now set to offer greater support for fledgling renewable electricity technologies from April 2009.

The month in which DECC was created also saw Britain becoming the world's number one installer of offshore wind farms, overtaking Denmark for its offshore wind power capacity after completion of work at Centrica's Lynn and Inner Dowsing wind farms off the Lincolnshire coast.

In 2009, the Department is expected to publish its new Renewable Energy Strategy to lay out its plans for reaching the new Renewable Energy Directive's targets, including the need to source 15% of all energy from renewable sources by 2020 and 10% of transport fuels from renewable sources by the same year.

A new Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy is also on the way, which will look into how to increase the proportion of the UK's heat coming from renewable energy from just 0.6% up to 14% by 2020.

In the Department's New Year message, it also highlighted achievements made in the field of carbon emissions trading, where the UK saw the world's first auction of carbon emissions allowances in November under Phase II of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. This year should see preparations for more organisations to join emissions trading activities.