Cut Global Warming

Ed Miliband (image by Christian Guthier, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0)

Big news from this morning’s
Cabinet reshuffle: Gordon Brown has created a new department for climate
change and energy, and Ed Miliband has been appointed its head.

This is, potentially,
fantastic stuff. Until now, one department has been dealing with climate change
and another – the department for business (DBERR) – with energy. This entirely
nonsensical division hamstrung any chances of a coherent, low carbon energy
policy and kept business and environmental interests at perpetual loggerheads.
No prizes for guessing who usually won.

This move, at last, could
extract our energy policy from the interests of big business and mean we have
hope for real, decisive action on climate change.

I say hope because a lot
remains to be seen about the structure of the new department. Will the DBERR
civil servants who’ve spent their careers to date blocking renewables
and promoting big energy move over to the new department? Will the department
be able to make its presence felt throughout government, keeping the
departments for transport, business and international development in line on,
say, airport expansion?

And, of course, a lot
depends on Miliband
himself. He certainly has the potential to bring fresh thinking to the
substantial task of fixing
the UK’s renewables strategy. (Far more than Prince of Darkness Peter
Mandelson, who we thought – for a terrible moment – had been given the job of
deciding whether to build a new plant at Kingsnorth. His appointment to the
Department for Business has spawned brilliant
commentary from across the spectrum, by the way. My favourite so far:
"Was Darth Vader busy?" from Chicken
Yoghurt. Although "this shock return is no surprise to us" from
The Federation of Small Businesses has its own unwitting brilliance.)

But the pivotal question
for Miliband is coal. Specifically, to build or not to build at Kingsnorth. And, hailing from a former mining constituency, Miliband obviously has an interest in the future of coal.

On the other hand, he
genuinely seems to get the need to overhaul the energy system instead of
carrying on with business as usual. In 2005, he
said: "it is becoming increasingly clear that we cannot leave energy
policy simply to the market. Without a proper government framework, the market
cannot deliver for the simple reason that market failures do not take adequate
account of environmental issues…"

Last month, he told the
Labour Party Conference that climate change was the biggest challenge. The
Manchester Evening News reported:

"It can’t be an
add-on any more," he said, but had to be at the heart of all policies -
economic, transport and social.

Mr Miliband said he
was ‘crystal clear’ on the direction the party must take. "Giving equal
life chances for all. Every family having the time they need with their kids, a
dignified old age for all and a country safe from climate change."

So there is hope for the UK’s energy
system and our ability to tackle climate change – certainly more hope than
there’s been for a while. But to me, Miliband seems like a man in need of
persuasion if he is to end the government’s love affair with nuclear and coal and
take the bold and decisive steps needed for genuinely low carbon decentralised
energy system.

Send a letter to Miliband now, congratulating him on his new appointment and encouraging him to begin a green energy revolution.