3.7 Frequently Asked Questions

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1 3.7 Frequently Asked Questions We ve kept these as a separate document since there are quite a lot of them. That also means you can easily photocopy them and take a copy with you when you go to get those signatures. If you have questions that aren t answered here please contact Tom Wright on or tom.wright@foe.co.uk Why do you want community groups, businesses and organisations to sign the action cards? A group, business or organisation represents a whole group of people or interests within a community. As such, if they sign this card then in an MPs eyes a groups of people other than the usual suspects is asking them to take action on an issue they don t normally associate with that group, organisation or business. That has a lot of impact and shows the MP that the issue resonates widely in society. The focus of our group / business /organisation is not environmental. Can we still sign the card? Many organisations and community groups are showing a growing interest in environmental issues even if 'the environment' is not their main reason for being. Across society people recognise that climate change and better use of energy do affect them whether at home, at work or in their social contacts. The more groups and organisations which show their support for better cleaner production of energy and demand ways to save money on energy bills at the same time as acting on climate change, the more the Government will feel the need to act on its promises. Will my MP write back to me? Your MP is obliged to reply to you as one of their constituents. They are not obliged to reply to letters from people who are not their constituents. It is unusual for MPs not to reply although it does sometimes happen. If you do not get a reply it is worth sending a reminder and asking for a response. You can also or call your MP's office at Westminster or in the local constituency office. In the rare case of an MP not replying at all you can resort to making a complaint to the Parliamentary Ombudsman. Depending on your MPs knowledge or interest in the issue they may reply in depth based on their own knowledge. Or they may just send your letter on to the relevant Government department and send you a copy of the reply they receive from the relevant minister, usually drafted by a civil servant. It is helpful if you can send us copies of replies from your MP to gauge the kind of replies and responses to the campaign. What s the point the Government never listens anyway? Some people say that taking action never changes anything. If this were the case society would stagnate and Friends of the Earth would not have achieved our many successes. These have taken time but have led to us securing a new climate change law as well as every household now having the right to doorstep collections of their recycling. In both of these cases we had to persuade the Government to listen and getting public support was vital to this. There are many other examples of 'people power' which have persuaded our political leaders and representatives to see new ways of doing things.

2 There are no guarantees about any campaign resulting in success or exactly what we want. But Friends of the Earth has a good track record of achieving change by environmental campaigning which makes life better for people. Are there other ways I can support this campaign? If you re in a Friends of the Earth group then the best thing you can do to support the campaign is to follow the actions in the Action Guide. That ll have maximum impact. If you d like to do more, there is advice in that Guide on how to do this. If you re in a community group, business or organisation that s been approached by Friends of the Earth, have a chat with the group about doing more. There are lots of ways that you could help out more, such as writing a hand written letter to the MP, visiting them with the Friends of the Earth group or getting your name in the newspapers for example. Visit to take action as an individual or check out the Friends of the Earth web site for top tips on ways individuals and businesses can reduce their carbon footprint. What on earth is OFGEM, and what does it do? Ofgem is the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, the official regulator of the electricity and gas industry. OFGEM s role is ensuring the efficient delivery of electricity and gas to consumers in a competitive market. They set the rules which govern the way the companies in the deregulated energy industry work with one another and invest in the networks. What exactly is this Renewable Energy Strategy? The Government has produced a number of ideas for discussion about how the UK could achieve 15% renewable energy by For example, the Strategy discusses how different technologies such as wind energy or solar panels can contribute. The Government has invited comments from businesses, energy providers and individuals and will be assessing the results. It's the start of a plan, but we are concerned that the Government will pay a lot of attention to pessimists or to those who want to build nuclear plants or continue burning coal at power stations. What was the Apollo program and what s it got to do with renewable energy? In 1961 US President Kennedy announced an ambitious plan to get a man to the moon. Despite the huge challenges, within eight years it had been achieved, showing that huge and ambitious programs can be achieved with political will. We now need an ambitious program on the same scale for renewable energy. Why should renewable energy get priority over other types of energy? Renewable energy does not produce the carbon emissions which cause climate change. Currently one third of our carbon emissions come from electricity generating plant. But the UK has huge resources in wind, wave and tidal energy and even solar energy. But we have relied on North Sea oil and gas, as well as coal, so much that we have neglected these alternative sources of energy, but now North Sea stocks are dwindling fast and we increasingly import our oil and gas, leaving us exposed to price rises as global demand for fossil fuels soars. OFGEM s role is currently to promote competition, which keep prices low. Will your changes mean that prices might rise? Fossil fuel prices will rise in future, as global demand increases. We are subject to oil and gas price shocks in any case - look at recent events and record high prices for oil. Even though prices have come down somewhat, competition for fuels from emerging economies means that conventional energy will never be really cheap again. We also need to think about the bigger picture - climate change will cost far more for example food prices will rise, floods and storms will cause immense damage. We think that Ofgem needs to have a duty to regulate for safe, clean energy at minimum cost. 15% by 2020 doesn t sound like much.

3 Many countries have much higher targets. The problem is that the UK has done so little on renewable energy to date that less than 2% of our energy comes from renewable resources - despite our huge potential. Out of the 27 EU countries only Malta and Luxembourg have less renewable energy supply than the UK. So this woeful underachievement means that 15% makes for nearly 10-fold increase in renewable energy by Everyone recognises that it's going to need a change of gear, but it will mean hundreds of thousands of jobs, home-grown energy supplies, and develop emerging technologies such as wind and tidal energy that will be increasingly important after % will be a good, although late, start. How will I know if it s had an effect? To some degree we ll have to see what the outcome of the Renewable Energy Strategy is. If it commits strongly to the 15% target we ll be happy. If it plans for a change in the role of the energy regulator to the one we propose we ll also be happy. However, this is also part of a long process and the work that s done now will help kick start the debate on renewable energy that is to come over the coming months and years. As such, even though it s hard to measure, we re confident that the campaign will have a lasting effect in terms of highlighting these important issues in parliament and Government even if the Strategy itself doesn t give us everything we want to see. The Frequently Asked Questions below were included in the first Renewable campaign action guide so they may seem familiar to you. How will sending a postcard to my MP make a difference? Sending a postcard to your MP shows them that their constituents care about energy and environment issues. It will also help to create a groundswell of pressure people across the country are being asked to write to their MPs. While one postcard might not seem like much, when thousands arrive on the doorstep then Parliament takes notice. What s the EU Directive got to do with us? In 2007, the Prime Minister, along with Ministers of all EU countries, agreed to an overall 20% renewable energy target for the EU. The EU now has to agree the details of a new EU law in order to implement this. The UK has been given a 15% target in the draft law, but some other countries, such as Sweden at 49%, have much higher targets because they have already achieved much more in renewable energy. Less than 2% of our energy currently comes from renewable sources, even though the dangers of climate change and carbon emissions from fossil fuels were acknowledged by the government twenty years ago. Why are we bothering since China and US are the main culprits? Every country must do what it can to reduce emissions to tackle global warming, particularly countries like the UK which have gained so much economically from their historical use of fossil fuel energy. Switching to renewable resources is absolutely necessary anyway because global resources of oil and gas are diminishing rapidly. If renewable energy sources are not progressed with sufficient speed then fossil fuel shortages will cause all kinds of problems such as rising fuel bills at home to oil resource wars abroad. How does this relate to the UK Energy Bill and the Renewable Energy Tariff? Friends of the Earth is calling on the Government to include an amendment in the Energy Bill, currently going through Parliament, to introduce, within one year, a Renewable Energy Tariff. This scheme (often also known as a feed-in tariff) operates successfully in most European countries. It encourages businesses, householders and communities to invest in installing their own small-scale renewable energy technologies by guaranteeing a long-term premium payment for the energy they produce. The bill does not go nearly far enough and will not get anywhere close to delivering on the 15% renewable energy target. However as a first step and a test case for the Government s support for

4 renewables, Friends of the Earth is calling for the Government to introduce a Renewable Energy Tariff through the Energy Bill. The Government has so far resisted passing this amendment. It is crucial that the Government commits to meeting, in full, the EU Renewables Directive target. In doing so the UK will set itself an ambitious but achievable target which will be a key part of a strategy to create a low carbon economy, with all the benefits that will bring. However the timetable is tight, so action now is vital to start to put the right policies in place. Won t we still need oil, coal and gas? To reduce dangerous greenhouse gas emissions and for energy security reasons the UK should source most, if not all, its energy from renewable resources as soon as possible, certainly by Building the required renewable generating capacity along with the necessary transmission and storage infrastructure will take several decades. During this 'transition period the UK will still have to generate energy from oil, coal and gas but in significantly decreasing amounts decade by decade. Coal particularly needs to be phased out quickly due to its high carbon dioxide emissions unless carbon capture and storage technology (CCS), which buries the gases underground, proves viable and cost-effective. If we want to meet demand, won t we also need nuclear? No, a new replacement nuclear power programme would only generate around 4-5% of UK energy demand. Even an 'ambitious' programme may only generate around 10%. So it is important that the UK focuses on harnessing the UK's indigenous renewable energy resources and not get distracted by inherently dangerous nuclear technologies. Developing a new UK nuclear power programme would damage the cause of nuclear non-proliferation globally and would generate increasing quantities of radio-active waste, the long-term storage of which is problematic and unethical as it is unnecessary. Why don t we just use solar power? Technical and manufacturing advances in solar power technologies are reducing its energy output costs and so solar can play an increasing part in the UK's energy generation. However, it is unlikely that the UK could be powered by solar power alone even when solar is fully cost-competitive. This is due to the practicalities in collecting the relatively weak solar resource in the UK, especially in winter when energy demand is at its highest and solar energy is at its lowest. We should be investing in "clean power from deserts". The new Union for the Mediterranean is working on a "Plan Solaire" to build lots of concentrated solar power (CSP) plants in the Sahara desert. Some of the solar electricity generated could be exported to the EU. Using CSP, less than 1% of the Sahara could generate as much electricity as is being used by all the countries of North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. CSP is a tried and tested, simple and safe technology which can also desalinate sea-water for domestic and agricultural use. Schemes can be built quite quickly and bring sustainable incomes to impoverished African countries now experiencing increasing desertification and climate refugees. With the right political impetus countries throughout the region including the UK could begin to benefit quite soon from CSP electricity via the existing transmission grid. As electricity exports increased by 2020, grids could be upgraded by converting existing lines to low-loss "HVDC" transmission lines, and by building a new HVDC 'Supergrid'. We should be investing in marine energy The UK has some of the best offshore wind, wave and tidal resources in the world. Indeed, offshore wind energy alone could probably supply around half of all UK energy. Yet successive governments have been slow to develop the UK's indigenous marine energy potential and continue to be more interested in funding research and development of nuclear technologies. There remains sufficient resistance within significant parts of the civil service to thwart the deployment of marine renewable technologies such as the Pelamis, 'sea-snake' wave device or tidal lagoon impoundment schemes.

5 The present government is investing much more time and political capital aiming to showcase new, essentially foreign, nuclear technologies rather than British renewables technologies. Won t renewables mean that my energy bills will go up? Bills are likely to go up as much if not more if we continue to use oil, gas and coal. Global demand for fossil fuels, particularly from large and developing countries like China is rising and pushing up prices. So the global price is likely to increase over the next decades. Conversely, the more renewable energy developments that are built then there is greater likelihood of energy costs reducing as technical innovations would be achieved more quickly. Shouldn t we be focusing on energy efficiency and reducing demand instead? The UK needs to be doing all it can to reduce energy consumption and associated carbon dioxide emissions, from insulating homes, to investing in better public transport and more efficient cars, driving and flying less, even eating less meat. It s not an either/or question, we need to focus on both renewable energy and reducing energy demand. The UK might cost-effectively achieve a 30% or more reduction in its current energy use by saving energy and using less. About 14% of the nation's primary energy demand is used for domestic heating yet around 25% of our primary energy is pumped into the sea or rivers in the form of rejected hot water from power stations. Much of this rejected heat could be used to heat homes, businesses and industry by building city-wide grids of hot water pipes connected to power stations. Such 'heat-grids' can be used by renewable schemes to transmit and store renewable energy and by Combined Heat and Power (CHP) power stations to burn increasingly expensive imports of gas and coal much more efficiently. Won t this lead to greater fuel poverty? There is no contradiction between meeting the renewable target and other social objectives especially fuel poverty. In fact helping households generate their own renewable energy is a vital part of tackling fuel poverty - especially for those families living in millions of so called hard to-treat homes (e.g. homes which are difficult to insulate such as those with solid walls). And a major shift to renewables should also help cushion many households from the current situation of rapidly rising oil, gas and electricity prices. There should also be no assumption that the cost of meeting the renewable target has to fall entirely onto consumer s bills. The Government must signal that public spending could help take some of the strain if necessary. Polling shows that the public s attitude to green taxes on polluting behaviour is much more favourable if the money raised is spent on green projects. Friends of the Earth is currently taking the government to the High Court (with Help the Aged) over its failure to put in place a strategy to eliminate fuel poverty. Friends of the Earth is demanding the government start a national mobilisation of resources to insulate the UK s homes. This will significantly reduce fuel bills. Strategies for renewable and energy efficiency must be pursued in parallel. This doesn t solve the problem of transport emissions It is probable that an increasing percentage of the UK vehicle fleet will be powered by electric batteries in the coming decades. So transport related emissions can be reduced as battery technology improves and as more renewable energy is fed to the National Grid for re-charging of vehicle batteries. Emissions from aviation and shipping would still remain a problem but continued research into bio-fuels and synthetic hydrocarbon fuels made from solar power schemes in deserts could provide a solution to these areas of transport. Isn t this plan going to cost huge amounts of money (estimated 100 billion)? We have to invest in our energy infrastructure we can spend this money in the right way or the wrong way. Our addiction to fossil fuels is exposing us to massive fuel price hikes and given that oil

6 is a finite resource this problem isn t going to go away. Thinking long term and investing in energy efficiency and alternative energy sources is the only way to overcome this problem. We waste a huge amount of energy the best way to bring down fuel bills and tackle fuel poverty is for the Government to launch a massive energy efficiency programme. Householders are already suffering from spiraling cost of fuel investing in home grown renewable energy means we will have a safe, stable supply of energy and we will be protected from future price hikes. The 100 billion figure has very little basis and doesn t take into account the benefits which will come to our economy from investing in renewables. It is estimated that the German government s climate protection programme will lead to savings of five billion euro in private households and industry by Isn t investing in renewables one of the most expensive ways of cutting carbon emissions? Why should we spend money here? We need all the tools in the box to tackle climate change we can t simply leave renewable energy out of the picture. This is about investing for the future and putting ourselves on a path to a low carbon economy. At the moment our energy system is incredibly wasteful changing the infrastructure so that renewables can form a major part of the system will cost money. But we need to invest money anyway in our energy infrastructure anyway (e.g. in upgrading national grid) we can spend that money in the right way or the wrong way. Plus there are real benefits to renewables as well which we shouldn t overlook - it is estimated that the German government s climate protection program will lead to savings of five billion euro in private households and industry by 2020 Based on strong support for renewable energy Germany now generates 15% of its electricity from renewables and employs 250,000 in the renewable energy industry (which had a turnover of 19bn in 2006 and grew by 10% last year). The most recent figures for the UK (2006) show an industry with a turnover of just 390m and employing fewer than 10,000 people. Isn t it really difficult to install a wind turbine or solar power on a house roof? The grant system is very poor and has not encouraged much uptake of micro-generation technologies (solar photovoltaic panels, solar thermal panels for hot water, small wind turbines) for householders. The costs are quite high still and make them unaffordable for most householders. One barrier that has been removed is that solar panels do not need planning permission now as long as they are within a certain size and the house is not listed or in a conservation area. The Energy Saving Trust has useful information on the different technologies and grants, and also on other aspects of cutting carbon footprints. As does the Friends of the Earth book, How can I stop climate change? Global warming isn t happening so why bother? The evidence on global warming is overwhelming and profound changes are happening to our environment. The global scientific community is absolutely clear that dangerous global warming is being caused by the greenhouse gas emissions from the sourcing and burning of fossil fuels globally. The few voices that argue against global warming being caused by humans do not have alternative plausible theories when looked at scientifically. As global resources of fossil fuels are beginning to decline anyway then new sources of energy have to be found anyway. We also need to worry about carbon dioxide making our oceans more acidic and affecting fisheries.