Since 1978 satellites show that the average Arctic sea ice-coverage has shrunk by nearly 3 per cent every decade. Anthony Giddens writes that by 2030 there may well be no ice in the Arctic at all, allowing new shipping lanes between northern Europe and north east America to open up for the first time.
In the twenty years since the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro governments around the world have worked together to tackle climate change. The international agreement at Kyoto in 1999 established a protocol to reduce greenhouse gases. At Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancun last year more tough negotiations took place. As Energy Secretary in the last government, Ed Miliband declared climate change to be the most significant threat to our social and economic welfare. In 2008 the Labour government enshrined Britain’s targets for carbon reduction in the world’s first Climate Change Act which places a duty on future Secretaries of State to ensure that the net UK carbon account for greenhouse gases for the year 2050 is at least 80% lower than in 1990.
Britain’s transition to a low-carbon economy is now under threat from the policies of the Conservative-led Government. If we continue on the course set by ministers, Britain will slip backwards to become once again the ‘dirty man of Europe’. Chris Huhne’s energy department seems impotent in the face of Osborne’s Treasury.
For example, the Green Investment Bank, announced in the Budget, will not be able to raise its own capital until 2015, and only then if the government’s deficit reduction targets have been met. From 2012 this ‘bank’, which green businesses are crying out for, will be a central government fund. Ministers say it will have £3 billion to invest (small beer compared to the global investment in green technologies next year of nearly £100 billion). Yet part of this fund is dependent on the sale of URENCO Ltd, the uranium enrichment company in which Britain has a third share, along with Germany and the Netherlands. When Labour mooted privatising URENCO, it was reported to be valued between £3bn and £4bn. Can ministers guarantee that any sell-off will ensure value for the tax-payer in these turbulent market conditions?
And what about ministers’ ‘green deal’ scheme to make every UK home energy efficient? This is the centre-piece of the government’s energy bill. It relies on grants for up front home improvements being repaid over many years from savings to energy bills. But the scheme is wilting under parliamentary scrutiny. Ministers claimed in the Budget debates that 14 million homes by 2020 will get new insulation, windows or other measures to cut their energy use. In September 2010 an energy department press release stated up to 26 million homes would benefit. Chris Huhne has claimed a quarter of a million jobs will be created by the green deal – but these numbers seem to be plucked from thin air. The government appears to have no idea how this huge number of homes will be assessed or upgraded, how consumers will be protected from cowboys, or what happens if the long-term savings don’t match the up front investment.
The Government refuses to link the green deal to Britain’s carbon reduction targets. Nor is it clear how it will help tackle fuel poverty (the definition of which ministers are currently reviewing). There is deep uncertainty about the green deal for anyone living in social housing (a total of 3,966,000 properties in England) or people in privately-rented homes, or people whose homes have solid walls.
A report this month from the US-based Pew Environment Group shows that in the last year Britain has slumped from third to 13th in the world rankings in investment in green technologies and companies. UK investment in alternative energy and clean technology peaked at £7bn in 2009, but fell to only £2bn last year – a decline of 70%. The Government is cutting investment in green R&D, such as the Carbon Trust’s research into biofuels and other renewable energy sources like tidal and geothermal power.
You can’t build a green revolution without a proper green bank directing funds at new environmental businesses and helping existing ones to grow, without a workable scheme to reduce household emissions, and without support for research and development into new technologies. Yet on all three of these tests the government fails. The window of opportunity is closing for Britain to be a leader in green technologies: home-grown technology and skills are disappearing abroad.
It is nearly five years to the day since David Cameron conducted his photo-opportunity with the huskies at the Arctic Research Station at Ny Alesund in Norway. He told us then to ‘vote blue, go green’. At the time the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne (now secretary of state for energy and climate change) dismissed the stunt out of hand, saying ‘warm words and pretty pictures are not enough to tackle global warming.’
How true.

Luciana Berger MP is shadow minister for energy and climate change.