RSS feed Philip Pearson's Archive

Philip Pearson

Philip Pearson

Climate change, energy and transport are the main parts of my brief as a Senior Policy Officer in the TUC’s Economic & Social Affairs Department. Working out an effective trade union response to climate change has been a huge challenge, very much a collective effort both inside the TUC and with our affiliated unions. It’s been difficult to draw any proper boundaries to this work, as it seems to affect so many of our activities and union members out there – in the energy, transport, manufacturing and services, skills and training, education and workplace organising, rights at work … much of what we do, in fact. Green jobs. I even think about them on my allotment.

I’m a member of the European Trade Union Confederation’s sustainable development group, building common ground with our affiliates across Europe. And I am currently chair the ITUC’s working group on climate change, our interface with the Kyoto treaty processes, magnifying my carbon footprint in so doing.

  • Environment

    The KfW? “We should copy it” – banker

    24th May 2012 — Filed under: Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    Each year, Germany’s KfW invests 25 times the initial annual capitalisation of the UK’s Green Investment Bank GIB. Today’s draft GIB legislation only serves to reveal the gulf in ambition with our competitors. The KfW Bankengruppe granted EUR 25.3 billion for investments in environmental and climate protection in 2010, a third of its investments. The UK provides GIB with a one-off £3bn budget over the fiscal cycle, and has yet to set its green mandate. Meanwhile, the AAA-rated KfW funds energy efficient construction and rehab in the private sector, offshore wind and  geothermal power, municipal modernisation projects and “climate-friendly local public transport systems.”

    Continue Reading →

  • Environment

    Energy Bill needs a plan for growth

    22nd May 2012 — Filed under: Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    Alongside the Energy Bill, a TUC Briefing, published today, argues that the government should set out a plan for energy jobs, skills and growth. At least £110bn of clean energy investment is required by 2020, and further £16bn a year through to 2030. Despite rising concerns over energy bills, we are facing a new “dash for gas” stranding the UK with high CO2 emissions into the 2030s. The Energy Bill must therefore enforce carbon capture & storage (CCS) investment on coal and gas power stations from the outset. The Bill should engage industry with a new CCS Feed in Tariff for major industrial sites. New measures to incentivise energy efficiency could save UK businesses £23 billion annually.

    Continue Reading →

  • Environment

    Cuts to homes energy efficiency drive up fuel poverty

    17th May 2012 — Filed under: Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    The TUC argues that today’s fuel poverty figures show that the significant investment made under the last government on energy efficiency measures had a huge impact, removing 500,000 households from fuel poverty in 2010. But fears of resurgence in fuel poverty, driven by the price of gas, cuts to energy efficiency programmes and falling incomes are borne out in today’s report.

    An extra one million households in England alone fell into the fuel poverty trap this year: there are 3.9 million fuel poor households in England, up from 3.5 million in 2010. And new evidence from ACE shows that the government is cutting in half the budget to make fuel poor homes energy efficient, despite evidence that this is the most effective way to bring homes out of fuel poverty.

    Continue Reading →

  • Economic Reports

    FT is right about 41,000 jobs from Regional Growth Fund

    15th May 2012 — Filed under: Economic Reports, Economics, Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    Lord Heseltine thunders at the FT today for an “extremely misleading” report that the Regional Growth Fund will create just 41,000 jobs, costing up to £200,000 to create a single post. Not so, says Lord Heseltine, who chairs the RGF advisory panel. The fund “will create 328,000 jobs … As I made clear to your reporter, I do not accept the figure of 41,000 jobs, which gives a misleading impression of the impact of the fund.” So who is right? The FT headlined a review last Friday by the National Audit Office of the government’s flagship to create private sector jobs where public sector job losses would cut deepest.  The NAO found that the 219 successful projects would create 117,000 full time equivalent jobs. Of these, 41,000 are additional full-time equivalent private sector jobs. The average cost if £33,000 per job, with a tenth of projects exceeding £106,000 per job.

    Continue Reading →

  • Environment

    Green growth fluffed in Queen’s Speech

    9th May 2012 — Filed under: Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    The Queen’s Speech opened with a set of measures intended “to reduce the deficit and restore economic stability.” Its single positive, recovery-oriented Bill will establish a Green Investment Bank. But it missed an opportunity to address the prevailing anti-austerity mood with an offer to boost the bank’s £3bn capitalisation. And if the government was fully alert to the industrial opportunities of a low carbon economy, it would have bracketed the Energy Bill as a growth and recovery measure, too.

    Unless the government manages to develop a compelling growth story to its Electricity Market Reforms, we can look forward to an Energy Bill under attack from the anti-wind farm brigades.

    Continue Reading →

  • Environment

    Happy Shell pulls out of North Sea renewables

    27th April 2012 — Filed under: Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    Two questions for Shell today as it  pulls the plug on North Sea wind projects. With a 16% surge in three months profits to £4.5bn, why do companies like this need the Coalition’s £3bn subsidy for oil &  gas exploration off the Shetlands? And, is the company’s finance director right  to criticise the “vast amount of public subsidies going into renewables”, when the government already subsidises fossil fuels by £3.63bn a  year, mostly in the form of VAT breaks? That’s three times the support received by the renewables industry, as the REA reported this week.

    Those in the renewables industry who feared that the new  government subsidy for offshore oil & gas world deter investment in renewables have so quickly been proven right.

    Continue Reading →

  • “Let me be absolutely clear…

    26th April 2012

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    When I became Prime Minister, I said that Britain would have the greenest government ever. And that is exactly what we have.” The PM made three other contestable claims about the green economy in his speech to the Clean Energy Ministerial today in London: “honoring commitments”, the high cost of renewable energy, and his government’s support for carbon capture. As few as 2% of the British public believe that David Cameron has kept his promise, according to a YouGov poll in mid-March 2012. The day after the UK formerly fell back into recession, it appears that the seven-minute, 1,288 word delivery seemed more intent on defending reputation than setting the renewables industry to the task of leading the UK out of recession (it expanded by over 10% last year). As to the contestable claims -

    Continue Reading →

  • Environment

    £50m cut from green economy budget

    25th April 2012 — Filed under: Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    Hidden cuts to the green economy fuel the recession. As David Thorpe commented on my fuel poverty blog, it seems that the government actually under spent its energy efficiency budget by a third last year, saving £50.6 million. Today, the Energy Secretary Ed Davey was telling the  Clean Energy Ministerial in London that:

    “We should make more strongly the business case for going green. Efficiency policies are unashamedly good for growth – using less resources lowers operating costs and frees up capital.”

    But as we blogged earlier, deep funding cuts are seriously damaging progress towards eliminating fuel poverty. Now, a Parliamentary Answer to his Shadow Minister, Caroline Flint, seems to suggest that one third of the budget was unspent for the last financial year, 2011-12, £50.6 million:

    Continue Reading →

  • Renewables sector growth far outpaces economy

    24th April 2012

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    Ahead of tomorrow’s GDP figures, today’s renewable sector report  shows it is growing at least 10 times faster than national growth rates. All its sub-sectors (solar, wind power, etc) exceeded the UK’s national GDP growth rate  April 2009–April 2010 of 1.4%. The weighted average growth across the sector during this period is 11%. Feed-in tariffs and the renewable heat incentive have propelled further expansion since then.

    Renewable sectors growth rates (%) 2009-2010

    Hydro Wave &tidal Heatpumps

     

    		 Biofuels  Biomasspower

     

    		 Stoves &boilers SolarThermal

     

    		 Solarpower

     

    		 Wind AD  Solidbiomass

    fuels
    2.8% 5.5% 5.2% 3.9% 4.6% 5.0% 6.2% 56% 7.1% 5.4%

    Source: Renewable energy: Made in Britain, 2012.

    According to the Renewable Energy Association (REA) report, Renewable energy: Made in Britain,  total UK turnover for all renewables and their supply chains in 2010/11 was around £12.5 billion.

    Continue Reading →

  • Environment

    Not NOW, please!

    20th April 2012 — Filed under: Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    Poor start for NOW, the new anti-renewables campaign, launching its batty Charter on the same day a new poll showed two-thirds of the public support wind farms! With so many people out of work or forced into part-time jobs, it’s galling that NOW claims “there’s no evidence that wind farms bring significant local employment.” In truth, tens of thousands are employed in wind power projects. The Renewable Energy Association has a new report out next Tuesday with the facts: we won’t break their embargo, but look for the new data on the jobs growth, skills created, export opportunities, turnover, revenues to the Treasury, and annual growth rates an example to any Chancellor.

    Continue Reading →