LONDON, UK, October 3, 2008. In a cabinet reshuffle, the British Government has announced the establishment of a new department of energy and climate change to be headed by Ed Miliband.
Until now, the UK's energy policy and climate strategy has been divided between two separate government teams: the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
The UK Renewable Energy Association (REA), welcomes the new department: “We are delighted that the Government has acted on our suggestion that energy now needs its own department and cabinet minister,” says the Director General of the Renewable Energy Association, Philip Wolfe. “We have been calling [for] this for some time, most recently in our submission last week to the Renewable Energy Strategy.”
However, Wolfe warns that Miliband will have to take policy further than his predecessors if the UK is to meet its target of 15% renewables by 2020.
“In particular we look forward to measures for renewable heat, which can be included in the renewable energy tariff being considered in the current Energy Bill. He also needs to overcome obstacles delaying renewable technologies like wind, bioenergy and marine renewables, and to adopt a more robust approach to renewable transport fuels and decentralised energy technologies like solar energy and heat pumps,” Wolfe says.
According to the BBC, the new department has not yet been given an official title, nor has it been decided who will make up Miliband’s ministerial team.
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