Saturday, June 30, 2012

Victoria's Green Matters - 30th June 2012

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

Our ‘greenest government ever’ is in the middle of an argument between those members who want to boost investment in renewable energy and other green technologies and others who believe these measures will push up prices and damage the economy.

David Cameron once said that ‘climate change was the greatest challenge facing mankind’ but he has done little in his two years in power to put in place measures to tackle it. Foreign secretary, William Hague, has urged the Prime Minister to give more help to green industries to boost the economy and to put us into the forefront of environmental technology. He also has support from other cabinet ministers and the government is under pressure from its own MPs to do more to generate jobs and improve competitiveness.

Unfortunately, there is a group of MPs and ministers who short-sightedly believe that low carbon energy will only push up prices instead of protecting the UK against increasing oil prices and dependence on foreign gas supplies.

We heard recently that Vestas has abandoned plans to build a factory in Thanet which would have produced blades for wind turbines for the North Sea. The reason for this is that Vestas has not received enough orders for its products in the face of concerns regarding the removal of government subsidies. This has cost 2,000 jobs in an area which desperately needs the rejuvenation that this factory would have brought.

Let’s hope that common sense prevails and those jobs will be forthcoming. Victoria Nicholls. Transition Deal.

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