DECC decked!

There is a perverse logic to the abolition of the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Since 2010 when David Cameron famously declared, in the DECC building, that his would be the 'Greenest Government Ever' there has been a constant reduction in financial support  for measures to address climate change. We have had catastrophic reductions in Feed In Tariff rates for renewable technologies and for energy efficiency through cuts to the Energy Company Obligation. The Zero Carbon Homes standard due to be introduced this year for new homes was dropped by George Osborne. Planning rules for onshore wind turbines have been made so restrictive that they are as good as a ban. One of the few drivers that remained for investment in renewables was the UK being a signatory to the EU Renewable Energy Directive which required us to produce 15% of our total energy from renewable sources by 2020. Even though many of our EU partners had higher targets that they were exceeding the UK was shamefully set to fail to reach our 15% renewables target. Then Brexit happened and the threat of the UK being fined by the EU for failing to achieve a target we had voluntarily signed up to began to diminish. With a lack of commitment to energy efficiency and renewables in the UK Govt it is becoming increasingly difficult to see how we will be able to achieve our carbon reduction commitments made in Paris last December. With the significance of DECC being diminished as a direct result of Government policy the abolition of the department is consistent with the Conservatives ambivalence to action to address carbon emissions. To all intents and purposes the Conservatives are Climate Change Deniers in all but name.

We know that Government will say that addressing climate change has been 'mainstreamed' into an important Government Department but it has in fact being sidelined with no Cabinet minister acting as 'champion' following a decline in financial and policy support over the last 6 years. The irony is that one of the Ministers who managed that decline, Amber Rudd has been promoted to Home Secretary which as we know is only a short step to Number 10. Who would have thought the 'Aristocracy Advisor' on the film 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' could have come so far.