In a speech at the Jobs Summit on 12 January 2009, Lord Mandelson stressed the potential of low carbon industry to create jobs and economic growth. But he warned that "this is going to be a fearsomely competitive sector". The government appears to have found the competition rather too fearsome, and rather than taking advantage of the UK's unique renewable resources and history of engineering innovation to become a world leader in clean energy, Brown's stimulus package has committed less investment to the green economy than any G7 leader apart from Berlusconi.

Nathan Argent, Greenpeace's Senior Energy Solutions campaigner said -

"Mandelson has talked of industrial activism and now is the time to show it in practice.

If this Government wants to create tens of thousands of British jobs and tackle fuel poverty, energy security and climate change in the fastest and most cost-effective way possible then they should invest in renewables and a serious energy efficiency programme.

With the best renewable energy resources and the worst housing stock in Europe, there is no better time to turn the recession crisis into an opportunity."

Energy efficiency:

Energy efficiency is the quickest way of reducing emissions and increasing energy security. It also has important advantages as a fiscal stimulus measure as it is labour intensive benefitting the construction industries, trades and light manufacturing. Investing in energy efficiency keeps jobs such as skilled builders, fitters and joiners, energy auditors and managers in the UK as it is largely domestically produced and does not rely on imports - important with a weakened sterling. It is often cost-effective.

The largest and most ambitious retrofitting project is the German Alliance for Work and the Environment created or saved 140,000 jobs.

Across the EU, case studies indicate that an additional €1 million of investment creates between 8 and 14 job years, with indirect employment effects contributing a further 9-40 person years of employment. Case studies from UK suggest these figures tend to be higher for the UK than for the EU average.

Government figures show that there is the potential to save over 30% of all energy used in the UK solely through efficiency measures that would also save more money than they cost to implement.

Amongst other measures, Greenpeace are calling for the government to

• Provide incentives to upgrade energy efficiency include the waiving of stamp duty or rebates on Council Tax for any household upgrading between energy performance level.
• Tackle fuel poverty with energy efficiency. Use the £2.7 billion spent on the annual Winter Fuel Payment towards improving housing stock while maintaining payments to those worst off.
• Upgrade the public estate. The government should upgrade the energy efficiency of the building stock in the public sector estate. Savings of up to £45 million per year could be made from the central Government estate alone.

Industrial CHP:

Industrial Combined Heat and Power (CHP) is a developed technology which massively increases the efficiency of power generation reducing fuel imports and has been proven to work across Europe. It could play an important role in maintaining the industrial competitiveness of manufacturing industry by lowering fuel costs. This has been demonstrated by a joint letter to Alistair Darling from Greenpeace and Ineos Chlor, Eon, and WWF calling on the Chancellor to extend the existing support mechanism (Climate Change Levy exemption) for industrial competitiveness reasons.

Europe's leading energy experts, Poyry Energy Consulting, have calculated that there could be up to 13GW of power from just nine major industrial sites. 13GW is the same capacity as eight nuclear power stations, but could be delivered much more quickly and more cheaply than nuclear, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 10 million tonnes.

Offshore wind:

The ambitious renewable energy targets that the UK needs to meet requires a huge expansion in the UK onshore and offshore wind capacity. The UK is obliged to deliver this and needs to upgrade provisions on grid access and simplify and adequately resource offshore planning to make it happen. Assuming this happens the question is - who gets the manufacturing jobs?

The UK share of the offshore wind jobs market range from around 23,000 up to 70,000. Where we end up depends on Government policy. If we want to end up at the top end we need real ‘industrial activism' including adjustments to renewable energy support mechanism if market conditions require, loans underwriting or a guaranteed ‘green loans' fund such as the one which the Irish Government made a requirement when they bailed out their national banks. We need upgrades to key ports to address the skills gap in the UK for big renewables delivery. There is a manufacturing base (for example the aerospace, offshore oil and gas industries and others) which could be encouraged to shift its focus by the Government.

A coalition of some of Britain's biggest environmental and development groups have sent a joint letter (1) to Government warning that the UK's biofuel policy risks doing more harm than good in the fight against climate change and global poverty.

The intervention intensifies pressure on the Government following a BBC interview in which Professor Bob Watson, DEFRA's chief scientific advisor, cast serious doubt on the plans and insisted that it would be "insane" if the policy ended up having the opposite effect to the one intended. (2)

In a letter to Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, the groups - including Oxfam, CAFOD, RSPB, IIED, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace (3) - criticise the upcoming Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) and assert that "there is a very real risk that the RTFO will make climate change worse, not better."

The organisations are demanding that ministers delay the introduction of this legislation, which would see biofuels pumped into every tank in the country from April 15th 2008.

The letter goes on to explain further problems connected to the production of biofuels. These include spiraling food prices in the developing world, increases in the incidence of land conflicts and human rights abuses, the destruction of tropical forests, savannah and grasslands for crop cultivation and the need for high levels of public investment to make biofuels economically viable.

The groups demand that the legislation is postponed until safeguards are put in place to protect against these negative impacts. A Government led review into biofuels was announced only this month and the new, Treasury-commissioned King Review of low carbon cars suggests that to deliver meaningful emissions reductions the focus of policy should be shifted away from biofuels and towards engine efficiency.

The letter claims that given these emerging views it would be illogical for ministers to press ahead at this moment in time. (4)

Doug Parr, Greenpeace's Chief Scientific Adviser said: "From next month British motorists will be forced to pump biofuels into their tanks with no way of knowing if the so-called green fuels they're using are actually worse for the climate than regular fossil fuels. For one of the Government's top scientists to describe these plans as potentially insane suggests that something has gone seriously wrong here. The targets should be scrapped. Pressing ahead regardless of the consequences for the climate would be incredibly reckless."

Abigail Bunker, Agriculture Policy Officer of The RSPB said: "Biofuels threaten untold damage to unique wildlife habitats across the world. Their production is already causing the destruction of rainforest, peatlands and grasslands and the release of huge amounts of carbon stored by trees and soil. Thousands of people last week urged the government to shelve its plans to force us to buy more biofuel. Ministers must heed those pleas not bulldoze through more biofuel use."

Kenneth Richter, Biofuels Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said: "It would be irresponsible to press ahead with volume targets for biofuels in the UK and the EU while there is no scientific consensus about their climate impacts and at a time when experts are still scratching their heads about how to adequately safeguard against their potentially catastrophic impacts on people and the environment."

Robert Bailey, Oxfam Biofuels Policy Lead said: "The RTFO should be delayed until the Government can guarantee that the UK's biofuels will neither make climate change worse, nor come at the expense of the environment and the livelihoods of people in developing countries."

George Gelber, Head of Public Policy at CAFOD said: "The government's Chief Scientific Advisor, Professor John Beddington has warned about the impacts of biofuels on food security, just at a time when the world's poorest people are faced with rocketing prices of their basic foods. In addition, recent reports doubt the ability of biofuels to reduce greenhouse gases. The government needs to look before it leaps in committing to biofuels"

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Recent scientific evidence has shown that many biofuels (such as those made from palm oil grown on newly deforested land) are actually more damaging to the climate than their fossil fuel equivalents. Meanwhile using seemingly innocuous crops (like oilseed rape, grown far from rainforests) may not be a solution either. As the demand for oil produced from these crops will continue for other purposes like food, it means that the industry will jut replace them increasing the imports of other crops such as palm oil. This crop is heavily linked with deforestation in Indonesia which creates massive greenhouse gas emissions.

FOOTNOTES

(1) The full text of the letter can be read at online.

(2) Bob Watson was interviewed by the BBC's environmental analyst Roger Harrabin on the Today Programme, Monday 24th March 2008

(3) IIED: International Institute for Environment and Development; CAFOD: Catholic Agency for Overseas Development. One World and Operation Noah are also signatories.

(4) The study will be conducted by the UK's new Renewable Fuels Agency and will look both at the immediate impact of biofuels and at so-called "indirect effects". www.gnn.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?...

Contact:

Greenpeace: James Turner - 07766 165323

Oxfam: Lucy Brincombe - 07786 110054

Friends of the Earth: Kenneth Richter - 020 7566 1671

RSPB: Abi Bunker - 01767 693438

CAFOD: Fiona Callister - 020 7095 5558

The government's consultation on nuclear waste is under fire today from environmentalists.

Greenpeace have said that the review, which draws to a close today, is "misleading" and creates a "confused impression" that there is a solution to dealing with radioactive waste.

Managing Nuclear Waste Safely is, according to the government, designed to "consult on a framework for implementing geological disposal" (link - see page 5). The consultation comes after Greenpeace won a High Court ruling in Februaury which overturned an earlier consultation on nuclear power. Mr Justice Sullivan called that consultation "unfair" and "unlawful", adding that it was "seriously flawed" and "manifestly inadequate" because insufficient information had been made available by the government for participants to make an "intelligent response".

Nathan Argent, Greenpeace’s nuclear campaigner, said: "This is yet another farcical effort from a government worryingly hell-bent on dragging the UK into an expensive and ill-considered radioactive future.

"It is clear that the Government are trying to mislead the public on the issue of nuclear waste and simply haven’t got a solution to dealing with stockpiles of this toxic legacy.

"They need to resolve the problems surrounding radioactive waste before they can make any decision to give the green light to new nuclear reactors."

For more information, contact the Greenpeace press office: 020 7865 8255.

See Greenpeace’s full response to the consultation.