Despite the gloom coming out of the EU climate talks at the end of last week (and the non-event that UN discussions on the same topic in Poznan appear to have been), there is one ray of hope shining from Brussels in the form of the Renewable Energy Target which will set binding goals for EU governments on sourcing energy from renewable sources.
It's been a tough road, not least because of ex-business secretary John Hutton's attempts to weaken the deal. Then it looked like some countries - Italy and Poland were the ringleaders - were going to knobble the agreement by demanding it be reviewed in 2014 but a compromise was put forward and a deal has been reached.
It means we now have compulsory renewable energy targets for each country so the EU as a whole gets 20 per cent of its energy (including electricity, transport, and heating and cooling) from clean sources - for the UK, it's been set at 15 per cent.
There will be easier access to national energy networks for renewable sources and EU states can co-operate to achieve their targets, plus aviation has been included in the targets (albeit in a complex compromise based on the proportion of aviation emissions in a particular country compared to the EU average). That might sound rather strange, but as Bex explained earlier there's a very good reason why it needs to be in there.
Here in the UK, where only just over two per cent of our energy comes from renewable sources, we currently languish near the bottom of the EU energy league. To get that up to 15 per cent in just 12 years is going to require a seismic shift in our energy policies and massive investment in renewable industries. Most of that 15 per cent will be found in our electricity sector, which means 35-40 per cent of our juice will have to be green by the end of the next decade.
There is, of course, a fly in the ointment. The agreement also promotes the large-scale use of biofuels which, as we know, come with a whole raft of environmental and social problems. There is small consolation in the fact that the biofuels target (reaching 10 per cent of all transport fuel by 2020) will include electric cars and trains. It will also need to be proven that the biofuels used do actually provide a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but how this will be calculated isn't clear.
The deal still needs to go through the EU parliament again, who are meeting on Tuesday, but hopefully it will be waved through. Despite the flaws, if it makes it on to the statute books then it's going to mean some serious changes to the UK's rather feeble attempts at renewable energy.
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