Climate change: Labour's energy plans show they grasp the scale of the challenge ahead – Scotsman comment

The UK risks being left behind by both the US and EU as the green industrial revolution gathers pace

Labour’s big plans to make the UK a world leader in renewable energy will be too radical for some, too tame for others. However, the party at least appears to have grasped the scale of the task ahead.

The US Inflation Reduction Act has introduced huge subsidies and tax breaks designed to boost green industries. After initial complaints from European politicians about this distortion of free market competition, the EU fairly quickly followed suit with its own “Green Deal Industrial Plan”.

Yet when Rishi Sunak visited Washington earlier this month, he sought to raise concerns about such “protectionism” with Joe Biden. As the Prime Minister complains from the sidelines, the world’s major economic powers are waking up to the direction of travel and stealing a march towards a net-zero economy. The UK may have made relatively good progress on decarbonising its electricity supply but more difficult challenges – like doing the same for transport and home heating – are mostly ahead of us.

If we fail to maintain our previous progress, Britain will get left behind. Instead of selling new technologies to the world, we will be importing them – as we currently do with many of our wind turbines. The Conservatives’ effective ban on onshore windfarms provided a powerful disincentive to anyone thinking of setting up a company to make them, a policy made ridiculous by the energy crisis, given onshore wind provides the cheapest electricity, and one which Labour has thankfully pledged to scrap.

Keir Starmer has also said his government would end new North Sea oil and gas exploration, to the horror of the industry, while honouring existing licences issued by the current government, to the horror of some environmentalists. It is simply not practical to “just stop oil” tomorrow, but neither is it remotely sensible to act as if net-zero is some far-off target that can be blithely ignored for years.

What is needed is a grown-up conversation involving all the key stakeholders about how to achieve the transformation of our economy in a carefully planned and managed way that avoids “cliff-edge” crises such as price crashes, investor flight, and sudden, mass lay-offs of oil workers.