Latest news with #CarbonBudget
Agriland
5 days ago
- Politics
- Agriland
Watch: ‘It's in Europe's interest to move off fossil fuels'
The Climate Change Advisory Council's chairperson, Marie Donnelly has said that Europe should 'move off fossil fuels' to address issues with climate change. Donnelly was a panelist at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's (DAFM) Agriculture and Climate Change conference in Dublin Castle today (June 5). Climate Change Advisory Council's chairperson, Marie Donnelly She told Agriland that Ireland's climate legislation is in place, but that it is 'not fast enough, and not deep enough'. Donnelly said: 'At a European level, one of the political questions that's center stage right now is whether the commission will endorse the recommendations of the European Scientific Body for the 2040 Carbon Budget, which is a 90% reduction in emissions. 'It's quite a political discussion, members of the EU Parliament are discussing it. The commission is debating it, and we expect something in September.' The Climate Change Advisory chair believes that there is a 'greater awareness' for farming as an industry, and as a way of life, and outlined the role that the EU will play in counteracting climate change. 'It's very important that Europe, as part of it's general approach, thinks about Europe itself, it's own self sufficiency, and it's own efficiency,' Donnelly said. 'When we look at climate change in Europe, it's very pertinent. Europe is the fast warming continent in the world.' 'What is causing global warming faster than anything else? Fossil fuels. Europe has no fossil fuels. We import all of our fossil fuels. Strategically, from a competitiveness point of view, and a security point of view, it's in Europe's interest to move off fossil fuels, as it happens it works for the climate,' Donnelly added. Marie Donnelly Donnelly believes that change is necessary throughout society in order to combat climate change, and that farmers will be impacted. She said: 'To understand what change we need to make, and to support people in making that change, that includes farmers. It might be financial support, new research, new ways of doing things that allow farmers to be efficient and climate active at the same time. 'We have to think of ways to get information out to farmers. Yes it might be financial, but it's more than that, communication, education, dialogue, mutual support, farm leaders, to get message out to adopt new mechanism. 'Farmers have been adopting new methods always. This is not new for farming. If you look at farming 20 years ago, it's not the same as today. It's the nature of farming to modernise as it goes forward,' Donnelly added.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Ed Miliband is laying a trap for Nigel Farage
If Reform UK wins the next election, scrapping net zero is first on their list of policies. Party leader Nigel Farage believes the move could save tens of billions over the next parliament, freeing up funds for tax breaks and benefits boosts. Labour's Ed Miliband, on the other hand, appears to be building his platform on preventing this coming to pass. If Labour can block Reform by triumphing at the ballot box, that's all well and good. If it can't, then there are other tools. As the New Statesman has noted, Miliband's newfound enthusiasm for community wind projects may partly be an attempt to 'future-proof' net zero, pushing things through today that will be tricky to unwind tomorrow. Underhand, possibly, but potentially effective. And it's an approach we could well see expand to other elements of the policy in the near future. Reform's targeted savings from the transition to net zero are already under fire. While the party believes it's possible to save £225bn over the next parliament, the Institute for Government (whose report the figures are partly based on) has argued that some of this sum constitutes private sector spending. Just as important, however, is the question of how much of it will be easily cut. Depending on which analysis you follow, spending over the rest of this parliament could average somewhere between £13bn and £19bn per year, with the latest Climate Change Committee Carbon Budget suggesting that anywhere between £6bn and £23bn of public funding could be needed in 2035. Over the period to 2050, one Office for Budget Responsibility report (now a little old) estimated the net cost at £344bn to the public sector, with the downside risk at £553bn. These are large sums. The upper end – £22bn or so each year – would be enough to fund the reversal of the winter fuel payments cuts (£1.65bn per year), raise the personal allowance by £1,250 (£11.1bn), scrap the two-child benefit cap (£3.4bn) and add another 0.2pc of GDP onto the defence budget – covering almost half the gap between Labour's distant 3pc ambition and the mooted Nato 3.5pc target. It's also the case that these sums could be underestimated. The Climate Change Committee's analysis shows net zero coming in at a net annual cost of 0.2pc of GDP per year over the next quarter century, or roughly £4bn per year, with the costs front-loaded and net savings towards 2050. But underlying these figures are some very optimistic assumed cost curves for the future price of electricity capacity, including a forecast for offshore wind unit costs to fall by 39pc over the next 25 years. Now, this might happen. But it's worth noting that the UK's 2023 auction round for renewable energy projects resulted in no bids at all for offshore wind. These auctions award 'contracts for difference', which pay producers a set rate per unit of electricity produced. If the market rate is below that price, the producer receives a subsidy. If it's above it, then they pay the difference back. Barring a period between 2021 and 2023 when gas prices spiked over tensions and then outright war in Ukraine, these payments have tended to be large and positive: producers receive above-market-rate prices. Despite this, offshore wind was a no-go. In the subsequent auction round, the Government raised the maximum price on offer by 66pc, with the eventual contracts awarded coming in at 58pc above the previous record low. Even this wasn't quite enough. Ørsted's Hornsea 4 project won its funding in that round in September 2024. By March this year, it had been discontinued on the grounds of 'adverse developments relating to continued increase of supply chain costs, higher interest rates and an increase in the risk to construct and operate Hornsea 4 on the planned timeline'. Poof! 2.4 gigawatts (GW) of planned capacity vanished into the ether, just as the plan is to boost it from 15GW to 88GW by 2040. It's a neat illustration of one of net zero's risks. If other technologies also stall out on cost reductions, if delays to projects push the mooted benefits further back into the future, if higher interest rates raise the cost of capital, or if the costs of projects slip in typical fashion, then the costs of the transition could rise further still. And that uncertainty makes scrapping net zero even more appealing for Reform. A policy which they believe will cut energy bills – contracts for difference, the renewables obligation feed-in tariffs and the guarantee of origin system have added £280 to annual household costs between them, before we get to balancing payments and transmission costs – is also a way to work towards balancing the books and reducing fiscal risks. It's a win-win. If, that is, they can pull it off. The concern will be that Labour is trying to tie their hands, setting up contracts and legal commitments well in advance of the next election that will make it extremely hard for a future government to change course. There are early signs the party is moving in this direction, with the next auction round for renewable subsidies taking the approach of inviting bids first towards a targeted capacity, then setting a cash budget after reviewing them. Combined with Miliband's rush to complete decarbonisation of the grid by 2030, and increasing pressure on the private sector to follow along with schemes incentivising electrification of home heating and transport, and the intention could well be to tie Reform's hands. However, Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK and the party's energy spokesman, isn't worried. 'Miliband is absolutely trying to lock us into his net zero plans,' he told me on Wednesday. 'And they're trying to tie up as many contracts as possible now to bind our hands when we win office – you can see that with the switch in renewable energy policy from cash budgets to capacity targets'. But just as Labour can play games with contracts and commitments, so too can Reform. 'We'll claw the public's money back by charging a windfall tax equal to the subsidy awarded, and bar producers from charging that tax back to the consumer,' Tice said. 'Wind farms that need promises of huge public subsidies to finish construction won't be economically viable. And battery storage systems will be outright banned on health and safety grounds; they are dangerous and toxic.' The result is a battle of pre-commitments. Miliband appears to be urging the private sector to pile in on net zero plans, waving the prospect of taxpayer funds at potential partners, and finding ways to make legally binding agreements that will be hard to unpick. Reform, however, isn't planning to unpick them, but to instead follow Miliband's example in the North Sea: restrict operating conditions, tax profits, and drive the value of projects to zero. The effect is to introduce considerable political risk into net zero projects, but potentially also to tempt Labour into finding ways to hand out funds upfront. All eyes on this space: whether Reform's pledges can succeed in scaring off the renewables sector could determine its ability to win the next election. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
In the name of net zero, the war on farmers will get much worse
The threat to family farms from the removal of inheritance tax relief has been the most obvious blow, bringing farmers in their thousands on to the streets of Westminster to protest. But the future of farming in this country faces a much bigger threat in the years ahead as the government pursues its net zero agenda. Already frustrated by endless delays in the 'sustainability' payments they were told would compensate them for giving up productive crops, farmers could be forgiven this week for wondering if the government would like them to stop food production altogether. If the recommendations from the Climate Change Committee are adopted, it's clear that thousands of farmers will either be forced off their land or told to retrain as forestry managers. The Committee's Carbon Budget, measuring the UK's progress to net zero, says that British cattle and sheep farming must be reduced by 27 per cent in the next 15 years, and that consumers should adjust their diets accordingly, eating 25 per cent less meat and dairy products. The Committee stops short of announcing food rationing, so it's not clear how these dietary changes will be imposed – veganism has proved to be a minority interest rather than a national enthusiasm. Farmers, however, will have no choice but to comply. The British consumer can simply switch to eating more imported meat and dairy products, but the government can impose its carbon targets for agriculture by issuing livestock quotas. Every item of livestock already has to be individually documented. Agriculture is one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the British economy. The environmental burden on the sector is already disproportionate. The Climate Change Committee blames farming for contributing 12 per cent of the UK's carbon emissions. But as farmland accounts for 70 per cent of UK land area, acre-for-acre British farming is much more carbon-efficient than other land uses. Yet the Committee's report frequently groups together emissions from meat, dairy and aviation, as if the sectors are equivalent. As Tom Dunn of the Tenant Farmers' Association says 'this is simply bonkers'. Ministers have yet to comment on this week's announcements, but Labour's enthusiasm for net zero and lack of sympathy for the countryside suggest that their desire to reach climate change targets will outweigh any concern about the impact on agriculture. Tenant farmers are already suffering from green zealotry as big landowners such as the National Trust remove fertile land from agricultural use and replace livestock and crops with millions of trees. As housing estates, solar farms and pylons spread their tentacles across the countryside, forests of plastic-encased saplings are encroaching further on our pastoral landscape. The familiar patchwork of arable and grazing land is disappearing. British farmers are paying the price for the metropolitan elite's obsession with environmentalism. Compounding the tragedy is the certain knowledge that as productive farming grinds to a halt in this country the increase in food imports means that associated carbon emissions will simply be shifted abroad. Winning the race to net zero will be no consolation for a once-fertile country that can no longer feed its own people. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
27-02-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
In the name of net zero, the war on farmers will get much worse
The threat to family farms from the removal of inheritance tax relief has been the most obvious blow, bringing farmers in their thousands on to the streets of Westminster to protest. But the future of farming in this country faces a much bigger threat in the years ahead as the government pursues its net zero agenda. Already frustrated by endless delays in the 'sustainability' payments they were told would compensate them for giving up productive crops, farmers could be forgiven this week for wondering if the government would like them to stop food production altogether. If the recommendations from the Climate Change Committee are adopted, it's clear that thousands of farmers will either be forced off their land or told to retrain as forestry managers. The Committee's Carbon Budget, measuring the UK's progress to net zero, says that British cattle and sheep farming must be reduced by 27 per cent in the next 15 years, and that consumers should adjust their diets accordingly, eating 25 per cent less meat and dairy products. The Committee stops short of announcing food rationing, so it's not clear how these dietary changes will be imposed – veganism has proved to be a minority interest rather than a national enthusiasm. Farmers, however, will have no choice but to comply. The British consumer can simply switch to eating more imported meat and dairy products, but the government can impose its carbon targets for agriculture by issuing livestock quotas. Every item of livestock already has to be individually documented. Agriculture is one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the British economy. The environmental burden on the sector is already disproportionate. The Climate Change Committee blames farming for contributing 12 per cent of the UK's carbon emissions. But as farmland accounts for 70 per cent of UK land area, acre-for-acre British farming is much more carbon-efficient than other land uses. Yet the Committee's report frequently groups together emissions from meat, dairy and aviation, as if the sectors are equivalent. As Tom Dunn of the Tenant Farmers' Association says 'this is simply bonkers'. Ministers have yet to comment on this week's announcements, but Labour's enthusiasm for net zero and lack of sympathy for the countryside suggest that their desire to reach climate change targets will outweigh any concern about the impact on agriculture. Tenant farmers are already suffering from green zealotry as big landowners such as the National Trust remove fertile land from agricultural use and replace livestock and crops with millions of trees. As housing estates, solar farms and pylons spread their tentacles across the countryside, forests of plastic-encased saplings are encroaching further on our pastoral landscape. The familiar patchwork of arable and grazing land is disappearing. British farmers are paying the price for the metropolitan elite's obsession with environmentalism. Compounding the tragedy is the certain knowledge that as productive farming grinds to a halt in this country the increase in food imports means that associated carbon emissions will simply be shifted abroad. Winning the race to net zero will be no consolation for a once-fertile country that can no longer feed its own people.
