Technology forthe longer term 313Energy policy in the UK
Three important reports concerned with energy policy have been pub-
lished in the UK in the last few years.
The first of these isEnergy in a Changing Climatepublished in 2000
by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP)^71 –an
expert body that provides advice to government. It supported the concept
of ‘contraction and convergence’ (Figure 10.3) as the best basis for future
international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pointed out
that application of this concept would imply a goal of sixty per cent
reduction in UK emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050. National quotas
calculated on this basis should be combined with international trading
in emission permits. To achieve such a goal more effective measures
are needed to increase energy efficiency (especially in buildings) and
to encourage the growth of renewable energysources for instance by
greatly increased research and development.
The second report is anEnergy Reviewby the Policy and Innovation
Unit (PIU) of the UK Cabinet Office^72 published in 2002. This review
provided an important input into the third report which is a statement of
energy policy published by the UK government in 2003^73 known as the
Energy White Paper and entitledOur Energy Future: Creating a Low
Carbon Economy. The White Paper accepts the need for a UK strategy to
meet the goal set by the RCEP of a sixty per cent reduction in emissions
by 2050. The mainpillars of the strategy, thatmust be implemented im-
mediately, will be the aggressive promotion of energy efficiency (targets
in the domestic sector of twenty per cent improvement in 2010 and a
further twenty per cent by 2020) and expanding the role of renewables
(target of twenty per cent electricity generated from renewable sources
by 2020). In addition, the options of new investment in nuclear power
and in clean coal (through carbon sequestration) need to be kept open
and further explored.
An estimate is provided in the review of the cost to the UK economy
of realising the RCEP goal. The cost estimate is not large; it is expressed
as a possible slowing in the growth of the UK economy of six months
over the fifty-year period.
The picture of the future that these reports present is one where
even by 2020 large changes will have occurred. There will be moves
to more local energy supplies (much of it from renewable sources), to
widespread use of vehicles driven by hybrid engines or by fuel cells and
to the beginning of the development of an energy infrastructure based
on hydrogen rather than on coal, oil or gas.