Cuts in a cold climate

As the debate over public sector cuts continues, government action to fight climate change must be protected as a front line service

We live in strange times. The battle of who can say the C-word loudest and first has a way to run. Whether it is the bizarre ‘savage cuts’ of the would-be playground bully Nick Clegg, the immediate make-your-flesh-creep cuts of George Osborne and David Cameron, or the long-term cuts-in-expenditure-to-balance the-books-with-front-line-services-protected of Alastair Darling, we think we know what we are in for. Of course they are not the same, as the media would have us believe: the first is inept, the second malicious and the third apparently sensible; and even the CBI seems to agree with that analysis. There is now a desperate need to irrigate the channels of difference: between, for example, cutting seemingly for ideological reasons and cutting for reasons of restoring the balance of the books mitigated at least in part by the proceeds of recovery.

There is then the question of whether some cuts are good and others bad: and indeed, what we mean by ’front line services’. I doubt that substantial cuts in the Trident programme will be seen by many as remotely in the same league as ‘savage’ cuts in our health service investment and expenditure. But it is these kinds of perceived difference that will begin to govern the debate. Becoming clear about what are front line services will be important.

Some are obvious: some less so. Most outside the Conservative party would put a high premium on public services such as health and education. Another, climate change, is less obvious, but it is, and will be the equivalent of a ‘front line’ service in the very near future; and indeed, will be the litmus test of the extent to which the three parties remain serious about their sometimes new-found commitment to CO2 reduction and the goal of an low carbon energy economy.

The reason for this is very simple and hardly needs spelling out: the climate change emergency that we all fervently hope will be addressed at last substantively in the Copenhagen summit will not wait for economic recovery to fix it: the imperative of action and massive green investment over the next 10 years remains exactly as it did before the global credit crunch, and the price of not putting in that investment remains just as high. But because the effects of most of this investment will not be immediately obvious for years if not decades, perceptions may change: the temptation to ‘cut’ in favour of investment that defends present services or produces early results will be enormous.

Take one investment - the recently announced plan in the 2009 budget to invest seriously in the development and bringing to fruition of carbon capture and storage (CCS). The proposal - to develop a funding mechanism through a new energy bill in the forthcoming session of parliament that will raise a combination of funding from energy suppliers and the government to support the development of a number of both pre-and post-combustion capture projects - is timely and vital. Yet already, voices are being raised suggesting that, in a recession, such investment might place a burden on energy prices and could easily be scaled down.

To do that now would, long term be grossly irresponsible. We are very likely to need coal and gas as a ‘baseload’ element of our energy supply for a number of decades: and yet we know that to rely on such contributions unabated will spell the death of any targets on CO2 we might want to hold to. The recent Green Alliance initiative demanding that all existing and new coal-fired power stations should only be allowed to continue when full capture is in place is largely right, except that we might not have enough power to go round very shortly if we did that. Most existing coal-fired power stations will go out of commission by 2016 anyway. Coupling the development of any new plants to a requirement that fitting CCS will be mandatory once the technology is proven, and as the climate change committee recommends, by 2020, will ensure that investment decisions on new coal plants will have to go ahead in the clear knowledge that this is what is required.

Except, if we water down or sweep away the only chance we have of getting to the position of mandating power stations to capture CO2 in the name of ‘cuts to balance the books’ then not only will we signal a lack of seriousness to energy investors, but we really will then have to close all coal and gas-fired power stations down in the end because of their indefensible emission levels. It really is ‘front line’, and we should be bold enough to say so unequivocally.

Alan Whitehead is MP for Southampton Test

05 Oct 2009 11:35

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