South West Green Party

'Put your money where your mouth is' say SW Greens

Emma Pruen, South West member of the Green Party National Executive, said
This has been a long time coming. But it is just window dressing. We need investment in tidal turbines, not just new names for our coastline. When the government pitched for EU money for wave energy last year, it was for a scheme in Scotland not the South West. [1]

The Green Party has long been calling for massive investment in renewable energy, leading to the creation of thousands of new green collar jobs.

Wave power has the potential to generate 27GW of power in the UK alone by 2050 - equivalent to the power generated from eight coal-fired power stations. There is currently only 3.4MW of marine energy installed capacity deployed in the UK.

Emma Pruen continues
The South West does not just have tidal power; it is also the sunniest region of the country. Yet last year the government devastated the solar industry, leading to the loss of hundreds of jobs, by slashing the feed in tariffs. What is more George Osborne has reneged on commitments to reduce our carbon emissions, promising to take them to EU levels rather than those agreed in the UK's Climate Change Act. [2]

Contact
Emma Pruen
Green Party South West Media Co-ordinator
07508 920583

Notes
1. The Pentland Orkney Wave Energy Resource (POWER) Ltd project was the only wave energy bid put forward by the Government to the European Investment Bank (EIB) for consideration in the first round of the EU's New Entrant Reserve (NER300) scheme - a fund worth around EUR4.5 billion to support carbon capture and storage (CCS) and innovative renewable projects across the European Union.

2. Under the UK's Climate Change Act the government is currently legally committed to cutting emissions by 35 per cent by 2022 and 50 per cent by 2025. In contrast, the EU is only committed to cutting emissions 20 per cent by 2020, and while the UK and a number of other countries are lobbying Brussels for this target to be increased to 30 per cent several member states remain resistant to any change.

 


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