By John Pinel
We have to plan now to seek energy security, before we are forced to change our behaviour by spiralling energy costs or when climate change compels us to act.
Matching the UK’s weak proposals under the Paris Climate Agreement made in 2015, our government has decided that the goal of a net-zero carbon economy should be delayed until 2050. In 2015 the impact of climate change was much less prevalent, but emissions have increased over the past seven years and, as this week’s United Nations report clarifies, delayed action risks environmental collapse.
This winter has seen record-breaking high temperatures in both the Arctic and the Antarctic, where the mercury rose 30˚C and 40˚C above average. Good news for the fossil fuel and other extractive industries, as these once ice-bound areas will be opening up, offering potential for more oil extraction and further exacerbating our climate problems.
The catastrophic floods, droughts, wildfires and collapsing glaciers we experienced in 2021 will become worse every passing year while we look forward to some future date when we will start to think what we are going to do about it.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has highlighted the problem of our reliance on fossil fuels. Just as many people believe that closing hotel after hotel to continue putting all of Jersey’s eggs in the basket of our financial services industry is no way to maintain a diverse economy, total reliance on one form of energy generation is also short sighted.
All of Jersey’s reductions in emissions come from our move away from fossil-fuel-powered local electricity generation thanks to JE’s investment in connectors to the French electricity network, which has brought us the cheap and reliable power we have enjoyed since 1985.
In 2028 Jersey will need to renegotiate our contract with Electricité de France for our cheap and low-carbon nuclear and hydro-electricity supply. This time we will not be part of a collaborative European Union. France itself will be seeking low-carbon forms of energy in order to meet its own commitments to climate change mitigation and any energy coming our way is likely to leap in cost. It is also likely that France will want to sell us its higher-carbon-producing energy – smashing any chances that we will have in meeting our own rather paltry climate targets, even if we do not currently account for the carbon budget of our imported energy.
It will do us no good to wait for this to happen, then bemoan the fact the French are treating us unfairly. We need to be making plans now.
Despite the current increase in prices, we should not remove energy taxes on fuel. Fuel does need to be much more expensive, though with appropriate subsidies for taxis and those of us who rely on personal transport, such as tradesmen and those who are less mobile than others. Fuel taxes should be used for an improved bus service and safer routes for bicycles and other non-fossil-fuel forms of transport. We should remove the subsidies on marine and aviation fuels for luxury leisure boats and private aircraft and subsidise public transport.
But we also need to keep the lights on, in both the short and the long term.
France is currently building a 496 megawatt offshore wind farm (which would supply roughly 80% of our needs) just a few miles to the south of the Island. It is due to be completed at the end of 2023. We had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to add our own windmills to that array while it is under construction. We could have used the infrastructure being built by France and imported our own energy via our existing interconnector.
We should use our unique tax laws to provide incentives to companies exploring tidal and other marine forms of energy generation. These solutions take years of research and development to come to fruition and we should be joining at the start of this potential energy bonanza, rather than waiting to see what other jurisdictions are going to do.
We should be working with Guernsey and the other Channel Islands to investigate long-term energy security with wind, solar and tidal power. We should be requiring heat-pump technology to be built into our new homes and raising energy standards in our building bye-laws. This would require developers to meet exacting energy efficiency standards, rather than letting the more progressive companies set their own targets.
We should be enhancing our planning legislation to require new developments to have a high percentage of self-sufficiency in energy through the use of solar, water and electricity and heat-pump technology.
We should have parish-scale solar arrays and windmills to feed into the grid, while we retrofit existing housing with insulation, electric boilers and other energy efficiency measures.
To reduce energy demand and provide equal access to energy, Jersey Electricity, as a majority government-owned company, should set electricity tariffs using sliding scales. Those who live in bedsits and flats should pay less per unit, with steeply increasing costs for those who use more to heat their ten-bedroom homes, swimming pools and external lighting, which has such a negative impact on our nocturnal wildlife.
A progressive States Assembly is required in order to tackle the enormous energy problems that are heading our way. I hope that voters are not put off from engaging with politics and turn out in droves to vote for a new way of thinking this June.
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John Pinel is a freelance ecologist. In the past he has travelled widely, covering thousands of miles by bicycle but also building his own carbon footprint with international travel. He has had many jobs, from working in finance to being a pizza chef, including over 20 years in various environmental roles for the States of Jersey, the last ten as principal ecologist for the Environment Department. He is now active in a number of local and international non-governmental organisations and campaigns for social and environmental justice. Twitter: @johnepinel.
