George has yet to live up to his promises

Posted by jamess - 20 October 2010 at 6:06pm - Comments

So at least we know they got the message. Giving his speech on the government cuts today, George Osborne said:

“Yesterday, protestors scaled the Treasury urging us to proceed with our idea for a Green Investment Bank. Mr Speaker, it's the first time anyone has protested in favour of a bank.”

The Chancellor went on to say the government was going to setup the bank. But only with £1bn. And even that only comes in 2013.

So there's still a long way to go until we have a green bank that has the power and independence to support low-carbon programmes across the country.

We're waiting to hear more details about the bank, but £1bn is far, far short of the £4-£6bn that independent analysts say is needed for it to be effective.

George's green promises have yet to be fulfilled.

Article tagged as: climate change, csr, george osborne

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Whilst the government's announcement of the creation of a Green Bank is a welcome development with £1bn of funds ( too small) we need to be vigilant as to how this money will be used. Governments in general have a poor record in spending money effectively - IT systems, aircraft carriers etc. Choosing what to spend it on can take an age. It is the commercial sector, spending its own/shareholders money which have the expertise to seek out viable investment projects and to deliver them. Hopefully, the Green Bank will not be managed by people from the banking sector who, having dragged the UK financial to the brink of meltdown, now are restricting credit to businesses. The Green Bank should be looking to accelerate green projects already identified by companies and also to tip marginal projects ( high risk) into viable projects (lowered risk) as a result of Green Loans. There should be clear credit targets ( £1bn a year say) and clear conditions on developing a growing UK company (UK jobs) involvement. The announcements of the previous government on developing very sizable off-shore wind farms has seen by far the majority of the work going to non UK companies. Why? Because the UK did not have enough of the companies who could undertake this work. This needs to change. We need the government to mandate. Here are some examples of mandates from around the world. The Canadian government has mandated that solar products solad in Canada will onyl receive Candian support if they have a minimum level of Canadian content. Various States in the USA mandate that the electricity utilities must achieve a certain proportion of renewable energy power generation. The Indian government is mandating that the mobile phone operators must change to powering their towers by solar (PV) and thus stopping using diesel powered generators. See - http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/mandatory-solar-for-indi... Greenpeace has a role to play in pushing for a larger Green Bank fund, seeking transparency on the lending criteria, the bank's personnel as well as encouraging mandates. Carrot and stick. George Scott

By georgescott - 23 October 2010 at 12:58pm