The government has just released its provisional figures for 2012 greenhouse gas emissions, and it's not good news. Emission are up sharply, taking them back to the levels prevalent in 2009, when the Climate Change Act had just been put in place.
;)
The Act is not apparently a policy success, even in terms of its own stated aims.
But we knew that. Perhaps more interesting is the reason for the rise in emissions. If you refer to the provisional energy mix figures, you can see that there has been a sharp rise in coal usage and a tailing off of gas. This has been more than enough to counteract the small (but very expensive) gains from renewables.
;)
So it's fair to say that shale gas has had an effect on UK energy and emissions, even though development of shale fields is yet to begin in the UK. But as gas prices plumb the depths in the USA, coal has been displaced from their energy mix, making it much, much cheaper everywhere else. This may well be the way of the future: DECC as managed to get us a mixture of coal and renewables that gives us the worst of both worlds - higher emissions and higher costs. Bravo Mr Davey.
It's also interesting to consider these results in the light of Mr Davey's claim yesterday that our higher energy prices are due to higher "worldwide" gas prices. If we are using less gas, shouldn't the effect be rather muted?