Our seas are a massive, renewable energy resource. The newly-formed RenewableUK (formerly BWEA) found a new focus yesterday in calling on Government to invest a further £150-£200 million in two renewable technologies – wave and tidal energy. Companies like Siemens and Vattenfall are keen to invest in wave and tidal power, in places like [...]

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Mitsubishi’s decision to build a £100m offshore wind turbine facility in the North East, with up to £30 million in Government support, promises at least new 200 highly skilled jobs. We were promised an active industrial strategy, and that’s what we’re getting. Mandelson and Miliband are jointly behind a flow of Government-backed initiatives supporting the [...]

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Which jobs are threatened by the transition to a low-carbon economy, and how can we ensure a ‘just transition’ that protects jobs and livelihoods in the process? A Carbon Trust briefing today shows that the problem of “carbon leakage” is small – perhaps 2% of our emissions. And it is capable of resolution with the [...]

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The launch of the new Neptune Blade facility in Newcastle today is a fantastic development for the whole of the region. 
The TUC rightly welcomed today’s announcement from US company Clipper Windpower to build a factory making the world’s largest turbine blade in Newcastle. What’s involved is a 10 megawatt (MW) Britannia wind turbine. Each turbine [...]

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Is the Robin Hood Tax on banks’ transactions the key to the $100 billion a year the UN promised developing nations in its Copenhagen Accord? Last December, the UN said new funds on this enormous scale are needed annually to satisfy the needs of developing countries for low carbon technologies and to adapt to climate [...]

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Pledges from developed nations signing the Copenhagen Accord add up to a mere 19% cut in CO2 below 1990 levels. This is well short of the range of CO2 emission reductions – 25 to 40% – that the UN says is necessary to stabilise global temperature increases. Still, apparently there’s no need to be ”irrationally alarmist”, as [...]

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When Ofgem talks about power companies “sweating assets” you know something is up. So may I welcome Ofgem to the TUC’s energy podium, for a long-overdue meeting of minds?
Ofgem, February 2010: “The unprecedented combination of the global financial crisis, tough environmental targets, increasing gas import dependency and the closure of ageing power stations has combined [...]

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Three climate change deniers have now graced the BBC’s Question Time panel in recent weeks. The latest (28 January) was Nigel (Lord) Lawson. Lately they’ve also had Melanie Phillips and David Davies. The BBC’s QT website tells us Lawson is “founder and chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation and is a well-known climate change sceptic.”
“Copenhagen will [...]

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What better way to unleash aspirations than growing the green economy? No doubt Alan Milburn is right when he says that, “Too many able children from average income and middle class families are losing out in the race for professional jobs.”
But this isn’t just about the journey from council house to cabinet that Milburn comments on [...]

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Please forgive this delayed reaction to a PM news item last Friday 8 January. It could have come straight from the climate change deniers’ brigade. I’ve had to check my facts. Presenter Eddie Mair reported that 70,000 new jobs would be created following the Government’s announcement of nine new offshore windfarms, requiring 6,000 massive wind turbines.
“70,000 [...]

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