Agreeing renewable targets
Getting agreement today to a binding 20% renewables target at the EU summit in Brussels is crucial. But the rhetoric has to be delivered. Britain already has a renewables target of 10% by 2010, but is failing to get anywhere near it.
While Germany, France, Italy and Spain generate 10-25% of their electricity from renewable sources of energy and Sweden and Denmark 25-35%, for Britain the figure is just 4%. This is pathetic, given that around Scotland and the North Sea, we have more wind power and wave and tidal power potential than any other country in Europe.
Kicking targets another decade into the future to conceal the failure to deliver in the shorter term is not good enough.