Renewable energy – a medal winning opportunity

Yesterday we notched up more gold medals in the Olympics than we have had in 104 years with the promise of more to come.  Whether this will be a one-off performance for Team GB is yet to be seen but our stellar showing in the medal table this year is no quirk of fate. There has been national programme to identify young talent and help athletes to achieve.  Resources have been strategically focused to ensure that those with potential have every chance to perform at the highest level.   And clearly it has paid off.  In terms of gold medals per head of population, among countries with populations above 10 million, we lead the world!

Could the Olympics offer inspiration to other projects on a national scale?  The government recently published their proposals for the most far-reaching reforms of the UK energy markets since the privatisation of the energy sector in the early 1990s.  The Energy Market Reform Bill is due to come to Parliament towards the end of 2012.  The Committee on Climate Change is clear on what must be achieved.  We need to substantially decarbonise our power sector by 2030.  They suggest that this implies carbon emissions from the power sector of no more than 50 gCO2/kWh.  The good news is that WWF, working with academic institutions in the UK, have published a report titled Positive Energy  that demonstrates that this ambition is feasible and affordable without needing to resort to building new nuclear power stations.  Their report shows that with the right policies and infrastructure in place we could easily meet 60% or more of the UK energy demand from renewable sources by 2030 without risk of the lights going out.

The bad news is that the Department of Energy and Climate Change are clearly lacking that quality of ambition that has led Team GB to such a success.  They seem wedded to expensive investment in nuclear power above investment in green jobs in the renewable sector where potentially Britain could lead the world.  Consequently a number of international companies have become nervous about investment in the UK renewable sector and indeed some have axed plans for such investment.  The Treasury is keenly involved.  With both eyes firmly on the Treasury coffers, George Osborne seeks a new dash for gas.  (See the current 38Degrees action directed to Nick Clegg). Gas does have an important role to play in the short term but the Department of Energy and Climate Change want to give new gas-fired powered stations a licence to pollute the atmosphere at unsustainable levels until 2045.  2045 is well beyond the timescale required for decarbonisation of the power sector.  The Committee on Climate Change has written to the Secretary of State warning that this lack of ambition implies emissions not of 50 gCO2/kWh but 200 gCO2/kWh in 2030. This is inconsistent with the Government’s carbon budgets and therefore its stated commitment that the UK will play its due part in helping to avert catastrophic global warming.

The General Secretaries of the Baptist Union, Methodist Church, United Reformed Church and Quaker Peace and Social Witness have also written to Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.  Last week we received a response and will put this on line shortly (sign up to our newsletter for further updates).  We are asking for a clear decarbonisation target to be included in the forthcoming Energy Market Reform Bill and for the government to unequivocally state its commitment to and level of ambition for renewables.  There will be a strong world market for these technologies in years to come.  With just half the ambition demonstrated by Team GB, the Department of Energy and Climate Change could enable the UK become a world leader in renewable energy technology.   But the draft Bill offers no clear strategy or certainty for investors.  Without this Britain will find itself well down the rankings in the medal table for renewable technology and action on climate change.

Housing worthy of the Olympics?

The London Borough of Newham has been in the news for various reasons in recent weeks. Newham Council’s plans to move social tenants into housing association properties in Stoke-on-Trent (170 miles away) were widely condemned. As stated in the Guardian Newham Council’s justification was that ‘rent rises linked to the Olympics and the demand for housing from young professionals has caused rents to rocket in east London'. This follows predictions that the Government’s Housing Benefit cuts and caps would inevitably lead to displacement of the large numbers of people who will be unable to pay their rent, particularly in cities like London with disproportionately crowded and expensive private rental sectors.

In the wake of Newham Council’s proposals, the now re-elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, reiterated his previous opposition to housing policies leading to ‘Kosovo-style social cleansing’. One of the few areas of agreement between Mayoral candidates was the need for much more affordable housing. Yet experts in the housing sector point to a housing crisis and suggest a response that goes beyond measures envisaged by Government or the Opposition. The Government’s Housing Strategy promises 170,000 new affordable homes by 2015, an increase on its previous target of 150,000. Many housing experts see this as far too little. The National Housing Federation recommends 'A public investment of £1bn - matched by £8bn from housing associations - would build 66,000 shared ownership homes for people on low to middle incomes, create 400,000 jobs and in doing so save the taxpayer £700m in job seekers not to mention the added savings from housing benefit and increased tax revenues.’

Boris Johnson has supported Shelter’s new Homes for London campaign – an attempt to create a body equivalent to Transport for London, focusing on housing. The first priority is “Homes Londoners can afford” and the key target is 33,400 affordable homes per year: this shows how far short of the ideal current Government plans are falling. The other objectives are ‘family-friendly rental contracts’, the creation of a ‘rogue-landlord prosecution team’ and a ‘London-lettings service’.

The tragic need for these measures is shown by another story relevant to housing in Newham: “The woman who lives in a shed: how London landlords are cashing in”. In view of the scale of low quality and often illegal housing being offered at often extortionate prices by rogue landlords (frequently to illegal immigrants), housing minister Grant Shapps announced the creation of a ‘beds in sheds taskforce’. Yet without a substantially-increased building programme on the scale of Homes for London’s targets, there simply will not be enough accommodation to meet demand.

This is not just a London-centred issue. People need to live where they can work and any tenants relocated under Newham’s plans would have been faced by the employment shortage in Staffordshire. The concept of a ‘choice’ in where to live is meaningless when jobs are concentrated in particular places e.g. London and as the population of major cities rises beyond the capacity of social housing and benefits, there seems little hope of avoiding  the ‘social cleansing’ and its consequences for people’s wellbeing and livelihood that Boris Johnson has criticised.

A recent report by the IPPR recommends that the Mayor of London’s new housing powers be matched by be given additional powers related to Welfare Reform. This could lead to an augmented Local Housing Allowance in London. If the Mayor gained devolved Housing Benefit powers, this could be followed by a broader devolution of Housing Benefit powers. The challenge here will be to develop the case for devolved Housing Benefit against the standardising direction of the Universal Credit.

Yet there is a broader issue.  It is sometimes argued that the expense and upheaval involved in large-scale development, like that associated with the Olympic Park, is that it can bring affluence and opportunity to poorer areas. In reality it often leads to rising prices and an inexorable increase in the value of land, rendering places permanently unaffordable to their previous inhabitants. As the few remaining affordable homes in London in areas like Newham are bought up by ‘young professionals’, tenants are priced out due to the Olympics and homeless people cleared away, the opportunity to remedy the social problems of a poor area has been missed.

Without a much deeper understanding of the relationships between the economy, housing and commercial property – grounded in land value – we will increasingly see paradoxes like residents being relocated 170 miles away in the name of initiatives supposedly meant to benefit the local community.