Follow the dollar
Posted on October 9, 2007
Filed Under Small is Beautiful
It can sometimes be tricky figuring out which way the political wind is blowing. Today for example was the Pre-Budget Report which is one of the three times per year that major policy initiatives are launched (the others being the Budget and the Queen’s Speech). For energy folks, there were two bits of news: an additional £170 million for low-carbon energy technologies and progress towards a CCS demonstration project.
However today also marked the release of the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review. This review of government spending over the next three years sets out the government’s highest priorities, written in the form of Public Service Agreements.
PSAs are essentially declarations of government intent. They identify major policy priorities across departments, set targets for implementation and most importantly provide associated funding. So what do the PSAs released today tell us about the prospects for a dramatic change in the UK’s energy system? Well…
- The first section is called “sustainable growth and prosperity”. Hard to argue with that but the word “sustainable” only appears once. In the phrase “sustaining high rates of economic growth”.
- What about transport, you say? Well PSA 5 will “deliver reliable and efficient transport networks that support economic growth“. Nothing on climate.
- Lots of stuff about improving quality of life, i.e. lower crime, better access to health care, tackling alcohol and drug abuse…
- Oh wait… here we go
27) A new PSA to lead the global effort to avoid dangerous climate change, which sets out the UK’s ambitions to secure robust global commitments for the period after 2012, adopt and promote cost-effective policies which reduce UK net greenhouse gas emissions, and adapt to unavoidable climate change.
- And finish with some stuff about water quality, biodiversity, development and the military (not all together mind…)
So to recap, economic growth and “stronger communities” are the main priorities and climate change gets an explicit mention in 1 of the 30 PSAs. Now to be fair, the full specification of the climate change PSA does set out a number of important initiatives and targets related to energy and climate. But on the whole, I would argue that the relative mix and short-form wording of the PSAs gives the clearest picture of government priorities. And rightly or wrongly, it appears that the economy will almost always take precedence over sustainability issues.
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