There was a lighter moment in
the UK referendum campaign last week, when well-known energy and climate expert
Liz Hurley announced that she would be voting to leave the EU because she could
no longer buy one of her favourite light bulbs.
This, it appeared, was all down to the EU’s insistence on prohibiting sale
of the said bulbs. The story was given substantial prominence in the British
press, notably in papers with a history of antipathy towards both the EU and
climate science.
The story was spoiled somewhat
when a spokesman for Hilary Benn revealed that Mr Benn himself had been
personally responsible for the voluntary agreement in the UK to phase out the
energy guzzling lightbulbs. “Ms Hurley appears to be in the dark on
climate change policies. It was Britain that led efforts to reduce carbon
emissions across Europe, including by encouraging more energy-efficient lightbulbs
in the UK before the EU law was agreed.”
My source for the above quote
is Joy Lo Dico [Evening Standard, 22nd April] but I have yet to find
this clarification published in the papers that splashed the original story. Of
course that would spoil the neat equation of European attacks on British
sovereignty with the evils of attempting to take effective action to save the
planet. But lurking behind these trivialities there are some serious questions.
What is the right balance
between the EU and national governments for regulation and market initiatives related
to energy and climate? A believer in
free trade ought to be arguing that a wider market, in emissions quotas for
example, is essential for economic efficiency and ultimately benefits us all.
On the other hand the EU emissions trading scheme has failed to live up to its
early promise, and that is one of the reasons why so many national policies exist
alongside the EU measures.
I shall try to return to some
of these questions, which will also become prominent in follow-ups to the Paris agreements, during the course of the referendum campaign.
2 comments:
Hilary Benn might not remember why he announced the low energy light bulb policy at Labour conference in September 2007, but it was already on its way through the EU. The European Council in March 2007 had instructed the Commission to draw up plans for a phase-out in private homes by 2009. See page 20 of the Council's own report:
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/ec/93135.pdf
Greenpeace separately claimed credit for it, saying they had already persuaded most retailers to phase out incandescent bulbs.
Thanks for that piece of information. That would of course fit in very well with the timing of the 2008 Energy Act, which was significantly more ambitious than the EU as a whole. In fact I think the UK is still more ambitious than the EU which means that blaming the EU for policies stemming from our very own carbon targets seems a bit perverse.
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