Victoria's Green Matters - 9th July 2015

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

There has been a disturbing report recently that the government that once claimed to be ‘the greenest government ever’ intends to end support for on-shore wind farms by removing subsidies by April 2016, a year earlier than previously proposed.

On shore wind is the cheapest form of renewable energy and we desperately need to produce more energy from wind, not less. All forms of energy production are subsidised through tax incentives and other methods and to remove subsidy from clean energy production while continuing to support fossil fuel use is madness for our climate. Alternatively, the government has agreed to go ahead with more off-shore wind power.

There are already 1,000 on-shore wind projects in the pipeline that could have their investment plans affected by the government’s announcement and could dissuade investors considering future projects. It is also possible that consumers could end up paying more for their electricity if subsidy is removed from wind power.

In contrast, we have the report from Lancashire that the county council has turned down a planning application by Cuadrilla for permission to frack for shalegas. The government is quite prepared to give tax incentives to companies that wish to set up fracking operations, with all the dangers that that entails.

Once more our government has shown disregard for the future, both in the short term concerning jobs in the renewable industries and the long term where there seems little regard for our renewable obligation or the effects of climate change.