‘Putin will be happy’: Government’s energy plan will keep UK hooked on fossil fuels, experts warn
Boris Johnson’s long-awaited new energy strategy has been met with widespread anger and frustration, with scientists, climate campaigners, charities and politicians lining up to criticise plans they warned will fail to cut fuel bills or tackle global warming.
The prime minister was accused of having “completely caved to his own backbenchers” after the government abandoned plans for a major expansion of onshore wind farms and ignored calls to focus on energy efficiency to cut wastage and reduce costs.
The strategy, set out by ministers on Wednesday night and due to be launched in full on Thursday, will instead revive nuclear power in the UK, ramp up oil and gas drilling, and push for new hydrogen production.
Ministers rejected calls for measures to allow new onshore wind turbines and failed to support insulation, deemed vital to reduce energy use and cut bills.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the energy secretary, admitted the plan was likely to do nothing to reduce rocketing energy bills for at least four years, while environmental groups warned it would do nothing to help wean the country off Russian fossil fuels.
Ed Matthew, from environmental think tank E3G, said: “The government has prioritised policies that will keep us dependent on high-cost fossil fuels and nuclear power.
“This isn’t an energy security strategy and will do nothing to bring down energy bills.
“It is a national security threat and the person who will be happiest with it is Vladimir Putin.”
The plan to scale up production of oil and gas in the North Sea came days after the UN warned: “investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness”.
Scientists were deeply unimpressed by the government’s strategy, with separate experts from a range of fields and institutions saying the strategy was “defined by incoherence”, “left gaping holes”, and was “half a strategy”. Others found it “regressive”, “vague”, “inadequate”, and “uninspiring”.
Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow climate change and net zero secretary, told The Independent “the government’s energy relaunch is in disarray”.
He said: “Boris Johnson has completely caved to his own backbenchers and now, ludicrously, his own energy strategy has failed on the sprint we needed on onshore wind and solar – the cheapest, cleanest forms of homegrown power.
“After 12 years in government, families are paying the price of Conservative failure. This relaunch won’t cut bills, won’t deliver energy independence, and won’t tackle the climate crisis. Labour would deliver a green energy sprint. This government just cannot deliver.”
A leaked copy of the draft energy showed the government had planned to remove barriers to installing new onshore wind turbines, which have effectively been blocked since David Cameron tightened rules on planning in 201, as part of a major expansion of the sector.
However, those plans were dropped from the final version announced on Thursday following a reported cabinet rift on wind farms, which minister Grant Shapps last week attacked as an “eyesore”.
Alethea Warrington, of climate charity Possible, said the continued block on onshore wind came despite “overwhelming support for the expansion of renewables, including onshore wind, voiced in poll after poll after poll”.
She said: “By dragging its feet on onshore wind, the government is failing people across the UK that are facing a worrying future of cold homes on a warming planet. Instead, we should be making the most of our abundant, clean wind resources.”
Environmental campaign group Greenpeace said the energy strategy would do little to help people’s bills or cut the immediate demand for gas and oil from Russia, which experts have said could be achieved through improving insulation and prioritising heat pumps.
Rebecca Newsom, head of politics at Greenpeace UK, said: “This strategy comprehensively fails to stand up to Putin’s violence, to take the sting out of soaring energy bills, or take control of the spiralling climate crisis.
