In March 2007 Tony Blair and other EU leaders agreed to a binding target of 20% of EU Energy Resources to come from renewable energy by 2020. They also agreed to cut CO2 emissions by 20% compared with 1990 levels by 2020 by using more renewable energy sources. Many said it wasn’t enough, but it was a strong move in the right direction, and even used the word binding, although I have not seen any mention on what will happen if the target is not met.

Only 5 months later, a leaked document shows the reality of the UK government’s opinion of this target and our contribution towards achieving it. Apparently we will be lucky to achieve 9% of UK energy being generated by renewable sources by 2020 and to do this will involve spending as much as £1 billion a year. Apparently our government is already looking for ways to justify our contribution to CO2 reduction via other actions and of course to prepare the way with the EU for being allowed to miss this target. By a long way.

The document was published in an article in the Guardian on 13th August (Revealed - cover-up plan on energy target), and a reply was published in their comment section by Malcolm Wicks MP, Energy Minister at the department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (The Government is well ahead of the renewables curve) on 17th August. The only messages I can get out of this reply are that this target is ‘ambitious and … a major challenge for most countries’, and that we must take into account cost effective approaches rather than just trying to reduce our CO2 emissions by spending whatever it takes. He provides some statistics about investment in renewable energies in the UK, but nowhere does he confirm that we are going to hit the target. For me this response was pointless, and if anything added to the message that we will try…. but we will fail.

Great. Over 12 years to go and we are moving forward in a negative fashion. We might as well adopt the attitude of someone I recently met, who said ‘The last ice age killed off a few million people but humankind survived. Global warming won’t wipe us out’. We’ll do what we can, but not without stretching ourselves too much, things will improve but not enough to avoid some major disasters that our children and their children will have to live through (or not), but in the end life will go on.

4.3% of UK Energy consumed is today generated by renewable sources. Germany and France are already over 10%, and Slovenia, Denmark, Latvia, Sweden and Austria are already over and in some cases well over the 20% mark. Why are we so far behind? Maybe, just maybe we’re not investing enough? Germany is investing heavily in encouraging consumers and businesses to install renewable energy sources and it is working. The UK is making cuts, limiting grants, and looking for ‘cost effective’ ways to go forwards. Isn’t it just a little bit too late for that? Isn’t £1 billion a piffling amount of money when compared for instance with our defense budget, a mere £30 billion in 2005/6?

In business, when you set a target, your client holds you to it, and certainly doesn’t expect you to make an excuse 5 minutes after you’ve signed the contract. You go all out to find a way to hit and beat that target, even if the profits you hoped for turn out to be smaller. In this case the client is the UK, and, rather than making a mockery of the word binding, the UK government should be doing everything in their power to do the same, and that includes putting their money where their mouth is.