Annex
A few illustrations of fairly recent failures
in policy caused by lack of overall strategy and fragmentation
—with particular reference to Climate change and energy
security.
Whilst the new Department for Energy and Climate
Change will bring together much of the climate change responsibilities
previously with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs (Defra) and Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory
Reform (BERR) it is likely that there will still be policy and
implementation responsibilities within these and a range of other
Departments including the Treasury, CLG, Department for Transport,
DIUS, Department for Children, School and Families as well as
Local Authorities and a range of other bodies including the Carbon
Trust, EST and OFGEM.
There are lots of examples of how this fragmentation
leads to poor value for money for tax payers but in the context
of this inquiry I have identified a few recent examples for illustrative
purposes only.
A1. Facts or adjectives
"A huge amount" of money is being spent
on renewable energy! The problem is that renewable energy is
usually mentioned in terms of adjectives rather than hard facts
and numbers—for example "huge wind capacity",
or "huge tidal energy". There is a distinct lack of
hard facts and figures. David MacKay[35]
is trying to rectify this. He examines our total energy usage
in the UK and then tries to provide a similar amount of energy
without using any oil or gas (which we would probably have to
do to meet our 80% CO2 reduction commitment). Amongst his
conclusions are that even if we covered the windiest 10% of the
country with wind turbines, we might be able to generate
half of the energy used by driving a car 50km each day. He notes
that Britain's onshore wind energy resource may be "huge",
but not as "huge" as our huge consumption. And to put
these numbers of wind turbines into perspective, they would represent
fifty times the entire wind hardware of Denmark or double the
entire existing capacity of the whole world. And yet again, government
departments are encouraging them without much thought to the figures
mentioned in David MacKay's book.
MacKay also mentions biofuels. If you set aside
land for biofuel it cannot be used for agriculture—one of
the reasons behind 2008's large rises in the price of food. He
points out that once upon a time the human race generated nearly
all its energy from biomass fuel, but that only worked with a
middle-ages living standard and population. If all British
land currently devoted to agriculture was used to grow biofuel,
that would still only equate to about 36 kWh/day per person.
(Current UK consumption is about 125 kWh/day per person.)
A.2. Clean development mechanism
Whilst the underlying intention and philosophy
of the clean development mechanism is good, failure to recognise
and understand the complexities of the science and economics in
the context of the global systems has led to unintended but largely
predictable consequences. Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner[36]
describe some of these, citing for example a probable increase
in HCFC production in developing countries to take advantage of
the CDM credit payments. Again we understand that attempts
are being made to address this.
A.3. Hospital closures
Hospitals as places of healing should ideally be
designed, built and managed on scientific principles across almost
the entire range of disciplines. From how they are kept clean
to prevent spread of infection through to selection and operation
of the requisite range of diagnostic and treatment equipment.
From ensuring that they are robust against some form of disaster
through to providing comfort cost effectively.
Closing down small local hospitals and concentrating
resources in large purpose built out of town ones was as I understand
it designed to improve quality and speed of treatment although
based on the experience in Hemel Hempstead the public view it
as badly conceived cost saving. Inevitably this policy makes
life more difficult for those who have to get there, as well as
having implications for climate change associated with driving
and public transport (and numerous other technical and social
issues). This may well be the right thing, but as far as I
can see there has been little real clarity in what Government
wants to achieve, little learning from the mistakes of history
and little cross disciplinary and cross departmental science to
research and identify options to achieve the policy and assess
which of these options give best value.
A.4. Micro-renewables
Until research carried out for the BRE Trust[37]
showed that micro-wind turbines might accelerate climate change
(in addition to the initial embodied carbon and efficiency of
the turbine, the payback period is highly sensitive to local wind
conditions, transport costs, maintenance requirements and the
life of the turbine) Government departments and some local authorities
were widely encouraging their use. Government should check its
facts and not rely on false claims and wishful thinking.
A.5. Infrastructure
Almost all of our nation's economic activities require
buildings and other infrastructure. Construction contributes
some 10% to GDP and buildings some 45% of carbon emissions. But
unique amongst all major world Governments the UK does not even
have a Minister for Construction let alone a department with a
research budget. Given the importance of our infrastructure (including
homes, other buildings, railways, road travel, air travel, sea
travel, gas, electricity and water supply, sewage disposal, waste
disposal and electronic infrastructure like telephones and Internet)
to climate change and energy security as well as our well-being
and competitiveness, we need this brought together coherently.
All of these need science and engineering input to work correctly
and safely.
A minor but related issue—the Government has
its own OGC to lead on the Government estate but its recommendations
are often ignored.
A.6. Life cycle environmental impacts
As an example, DEFRA are working on the life
cycle environmental analysis of plasterboard (amongst other things).
But this work has already been completed to a large extent—and
not just for plasterboard, but for a whole range of construction
products. The Green Guide to Specification[38]
provides guidance on the relative environmental impacts of over
250 elemental specifications for roofs, walls and floors
etc. The methodology was developed by the BRE Trust Group with
partial funding from the then DETR and support from a wide range
of construction manufacturing trade associations co-ordinated
by the Construction Products Association.
January 2009
35 "Sustainable Energy- without the hot air"-Professor
David MacKay-Professor of Natural Philosophy, Department of Physics,
University of Cambridge-2008. Back
36
"The Wrong Trousers-radically rethinking climate policy"-Gwyn
Prins and Steve Rayner-a joint discussion paper of the James Martin
Institute for Science and Civilisation, University of Oxford,
and the MacKinder Centre for the Study of
Long-Wave Events, London School of Economics-2007. Back
37
"Micro-wind turbines in urban environments-an assessment"-R
Phillips, P Blackmore, J Anderson, M Clift,
A Aguilo-Rullan and S Pester-2007. Back
38
"Green Guide to Specification", 4th Edition-Jane
Anderson, David Shiers-2009. Back
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