GWPF | 26 Nov 2015
Britain Downgrades Climate Agenda, Cuts More Green Schemes
There will be further cuts to government schemes designed to encourage low-carbon energy and greater efficiency, the chancellor said on Wednesday. George Osborne announced that the charge suppliers must levy on customers to help pay for efficiency measures, such as insulation, will be reduced. He said the move would lower customer bills, saving an average of £30 a year for 24m households. But it is also the latest sign that he is prioritising affordability over attempts to cut emissions. –Kiran Stacey and Michael Pooler, Financial Times, 25 November 2015
The Government has been fiercely criticised after it quietly scrapped a £1bn project to cut carbon emissions and removed more “green crap” from household energy bills. In a move the Treasury omitted to mention in its Autumn Statement announcements, a pilot project to develop a new technology that can capture the emissions from gas and coal plants and pipe them underground has been scrapped. Experts said ending the project would make it much harder for the UK to meet its ambitious climate change targets, given the central role that gas is set to play in the country’s energy sector. –Tom Bawden, The Independent, 25 November 2015
Britain has scrapped plans to spend up to 1 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) to help commercialize the technology for capturing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and storing them underground, the government said on Wednesday, putting two major projects at risk of being canceled. The announcement comes just days before negotiators from more than 190 countries are due to meet in Paris to thrash out a global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions blamed for rising temperatures. Britain had previously viewed CCS as a vital tool to help it meet its legally binding target to cut emissions by 80 percent on 1990 levels by 2050. — Susanna Twidale,
Reuters, 25 November 2015
1) Britain Downgrades Climate Agenda, Cuts More Green Schemes – Financial Times, 25 November 2015
2) Britain Axes £1bn Carbon Capture & Storage Funding – Reuters, 25 November 2015
3) UK Government Criticised For Cutting ‘Green Crap’ – The Independent, 25 November 2015
4) Britain Cuts Climate Taxes For Struggling Steel & Chemical Industries – Reuters, 25 November 2015
5) All Out For Shale, UK To Create ‘Shale Wealth Fund’ – Forbes, 25 November 2015
6) US States Warn China, India That Obama’s Climate Plan Is Illegal – Financial Times, 25 November 2015
Britain will permanently exclude energy-intensive industries such as steel and chemicals from extra costs to support green energy projects, Chancellor George Osborne said on Wednesday. Steelmakers in particular have been hit by heavy energy costs that make it harder for them to compete internationally, contributing to thousands of job cuts in the sector in recent weeks. “We’re going to permanently exempt our energy intensive industries … from the cost of environmental tariffs, so we keep their bills down, keep them competitive and keep them here,” Osborne told Parliament in his autumn budget statement. —Reuters, 25 November 2015
In his Autumn Statement, or budgetary update, to the British Parliament on 25 November, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne dropped yet another morsel for UK shale enthusiasts. “We are supporting the creation of the shale gas industry by ensuring that communities benefit from a Shale Wealth Fund (SWF), which could be worth of up to £1 billion ($1.6 billion).” Much of it is designed to win over people and local councils in zones impacted by shale exploration. It follows the British Department of Energy and Climate Change’s earlier announcement that the government’s energy policy will see natural gas play a “central role in the UK’s future power generation plans”. –Gaurav Sharma, Forbes, 25 November 2015
State officials in West Virginia and Texas are sending a letter to the governments of China, India and other countries, arguing that US President Barack Obama’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions is unlawful and likely to be struck down in court.
In an intervention aimed at the international climate talks that begin in Paris next Monday, the attorneys-general of the two states warn that there are “significant legal limits [on Mr Obama’s] ability either to carry out the promises he has made in advance of Paris 2015 or to enforce any agreement arising out of the summit.” The letter highlights the difficulties the US administration will face in the Paris negotiations because of the general opposition to action on climate change among the Republican party, which controls Congress and over half the state governments. –Ed Crooks, Financial Times, 25 November 2015
1) Britain Downgrades Climate Agenda, Cuts More Green Schemes
Financial Times, 25 November 2015
Kiran Stacey and Michael Pooler
There will be further cuts to government schemes designed to encourage low-carbon energy and greater efficiency, the chancellor said on Wednesday.
Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne leaves the Treasury for the House of Commons to deliver the his Autumn statement, including deep cuts in green schemes, on 25 November, 2015 in London, England. (Photo: Jack Hill – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
George Osborne announced that the charge suppliers must levy on customers to help pay for efficiency measures, such as insulation, will be reduced.
He said the move would lower customer bills, saving an average of £30 a year for 24m households. But it is also the latest sign that he is prioritising affordability over attempts to cut emissions. […]
These measures followed a series of cuts to subsidies for renewable electricity generators, including onshore wind and solar farms. The renewables industry has warned that the UK will miss its emissions targets as a result.
Amber Rudd, the energy secretary, has insisted this will not happen. However, meeting the targets will also be more challenging because of Wednesday’s announcement that ministers are axing plans to hand £1bn to companies to develop carbon capture and storage.
Other technologies will be supported, however, with a new £250m fund to help develop schemes such as small modular nuclear reactors.
The chancellor also announced that the energy department’s daily budget would be cut by 22 per cent as part of the spending review of all departmental budgets for the next five years.
2) It’s All Over: Britain Axes £1bn Carbon Capture & Storage Funding
Reuters, 25 November 2015
Susanna Twidale
Britain has scrapped plans to spend up to 1 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) to help commercialize the technology for capturing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and storing them underground, the government said on Wednesday, putting two major projects at risk of being canceled.
The announcement comes just days before negotiators from more than 190 countries are due to meet in Paris to thrash out a global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions blamed for rising temperatures.
“Following the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, HM Government confirms that the 1 billion-pound ring-fenced capital budget for the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Competition is no longer available,” the government said.
Britain has two potential large-scale CCS schemes, one being developed at an existing gas-fired plant in Peterhead, Scotland, by Shell and utility SSE. A second, White Rose, is being worked on at the UK’s biggest coal-fired power station by the plant operator Drax and engineering consortium Capture Power, which includes GE and BOC, part of the Linde Group.
“It is too early to make any definitive decisions about the future of the White Rose CCS Project. However, it is difficult to imagine its continuation in the absence of crucial government support,” Leigh Hackett, CEO of Capture Power, said in a statement.
Drax said in September it would not invest further in the project once the feasibility study is completed.]
Shell and SSE both said in separate statements the decision was disappointing and represented a missed opportunity for the country.
“Without that funding, we no longer see a future for the Peterhead project in the near term,” a spokesman for Shell said.
The International Energy Agency said CCS could contribute one sixth of the global emission reductions sinetists say are needed by 2050 to stave off the worst effects of climate change such as drought, sea level rises and flooding.
Britain had previously viewed CCS as a vital tool to help it meet its legally binding target to cut emissions by 80 percent on 1990 levels by 2050.
3) UK Government Criticised For Cutting ‘Green Crap’
The Independent, 25 November 2015
Tom Bawden
The Government has been fiercely criticised after it quietly scrapped a £1bn project to cut carbon emissions and removed more “green crap” from household energy bills.
In a move the Treasury omitted to mention in its Autumn Statement announcements, a pilot project to develop a new technology that can capture the emissions from gas and coal plants and pipe them underground has been scrapped.
The announcement, confined to a stock market news website, means there are now no carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the UK.
Experts said ending the project would make it much harder for the UK to meet its ambitious climate change targets, given the central role that gas is set to play in the country’s energy sector.
4) Britain Cuts Climate Taxes For Struggling Steel & Chemical Industries
Reuters, 25 November 2015
Britain will permanently exclude energy-intensive industries such as steel and chemicals from extra costs to support green energy projects, Chancellor George Osborne said on Wednesday.
Steelmakers in particular have been hit by heavy energy costs that make it harder for them to compete internationally, contributing to thousands of job cuts in the sector in recent weeks.
Tata Steel, the biggest steelmaker in Britain, for instance said last month it may cut about 1,200 jobs as part of plans to restructure its struggling operations.
“We’re going to permanently exempt our energy intensive industries … from the cost of environmental tariffs, so we keep their bills down, keep them competitive and keep them here,” Osborne told Parliament in his autumn budget statement.
Exemptions from those charges, which help pay for the construction of renewable energy plants like solar panels or wind farms, mean they will instead add 5 pounds ($7.55) per year to consumer energy bills, the government said.
However, plans to reduce energy efficiency charges on suppliers and cuts to green energy subsidies will lower consumer energy bills by 30 pounds a year in 2017-18, the government added.
5) All Out For Shale, UK To Create ‘Shale Wealth Fund’
Gaurav Sharma
Apart from the US and Canada, only Argentina and China happen to be producing either natural gas from shale formations or crude oil from tight formations at an international level. The UK is desperate to join the club, more so as the best days of its North Sea oil and gas assets appear to be behind it.
Pulses have been racing since 2013, when the British Geological Survey provided a central estimate of 1,329 trillion cubic feet of gas in UK shale formations. While the BGS did not say how much of the said volume was technically recoverable, and policymakers acknowledge UK shale will not be quite the game changer it has been stateside, the country remains determined to get at it and the government determined to support it.
In his Autumn Statement, or budgetary update, to the British Parliament on 25 November, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne dropped yet another morsel for UK shale enthusiasts. “We are supporting the creation of the shale gas industry by ensuring that communities benefit from a Shale Wealth Fund (SWF), which could be worth of up to £1 billion ($1.6 billion).”
Much of it is designed to win over people and local councils in zones impacted by shale exploration. It follows the British Department of Energy and Climate Change’s earlier announcement that the government’s energy policy will see natural gas play a “central role in the UK’s future power generation plans”.
Osborne’s colleague, Energy Secretary Amber Rudd noted on 18 November that she would open consultation on closing the country’s coal-fired power stations by 2025 in tandem with the introduction of “more gas” into the energy mix.
The latest announcements come just a year after the UK Treasury’s incentives for onshore prospection (announced in March 2014), wherein a portion of profit equal to 75% of an exploration company’s qualifying onshore capital expenditure would be exempt from supplementary tax charge.
This portion of the profit will then be subject to tax at 30%, while the remaining profit will be subject to a marginal tax rate of 62%, as is usually the case with oil and gas companies operating on the UK Continental Shelf.
6) US States Warn China, India That Obama’s Climate Plan Is Illegal
Financial Times, 25 November 2015
Ed Crooks
State officials in West Virginia and Texas are sending a letter to the governments of China, India and other countries, arguing that US President Barack Obama’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions is unlawful and likely to be struck down in court.
In an intervention aimed at the international climate talks that begin in Paris next Monday, the attorneys-general of the two states warn that there are “significant legal limits [on Mr Obama’s] ability either to carry out the promises he has made in advance of Paris 2015 or to enforce any agreement arising out of the summit.”
The letter is addressed to John Kerry, the US secretary of state, but is also being circulated to ministers from large economies that will be key participants in the Paris talks.
The attorneys-general argue that Mr Kerry has a duty to tell other countries that “the centrepiece of the president’s domestic [carbon dioxide emissions] reduction program is being challenged in court by a majority of states and will likely be struck down.”
The letter highlights the difficulties the US administration will face in the Paris negotiations because of the general opposition to action on climate change among the Republican party, which controls Congress and over half the state governments.
West Virginia and Texas are leading the legal action, now joined by 27 states, against the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, its most significant climate policy.
