We need to respond to climate change
The risk of severe heat waves, storms, droughts and floods is getting closer with every passing year. Suffolk has been lucky so far, but we need to prepare. We also need the UK government and our local authorities to go much faster on decarbonisation.
New houses must be more energy efficient, and the council should aim to decarbonise the heating of existing council homes by 2030. We can still power our homes and businesses using renewables.
If we build enough renewable capacity, we can store the excess when it is not needed and release it when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. It's a myth that we need clean green nuclear to provide a base load and stabilise the grid. Nuclear is neither clean nor green, and provides the most expensive kilowatt hours on the menu. We can get to net zero and achieve a stable grid without it.
As global heating continues, the impact of climate change in Suffolk will become more obvious with more frequent flooding events and heatwaves intruding more noticeably on everyday life (water shortages may also become apparent).
SCC and ESC have both set targets to reach net zero by 2030. This is unlikely to be achieved without action on a much greater scale by the UK government: the local authorities simply do not have the powers and resources to achieve it on their own, other than in their own operations.
The UK (and our region of Suffolk) should continue to pursue vigorous action to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible. Greens have long led on this issue, and more Green MPs can help hold the next government to account.
Greener steps we can take locally
Over the next four years, The Green Party would increase the pace of the council homes retrofit programme. We'd also increase rural bus services and ambitious walking and cycling plans to promote greener transport links and less reliance on cars. We'd focus on fitting and retrofitting homes with insulation and lower carbon energy sources. All new houses must have solar panels, insulation and charging points for cycles and cars.
The urgency of the climate crisis does require a rapid decarbonisation of the electricity generation system, and if we support campaigns against all new energy infrastructure we can come across as confused or even hypocritical.
So, what is the answer? It's ‘Yes to wind power, but let’s do it right.’ In the current mad world of private energy companies, there's currently no cogent overall plan for bringing 50GW of wind power onshore. This means that every operator is looking at point to point onshore connections, threatening to despoil multiple rural sites along the UK coastline. ‘Doing it right’ means reducing the number of onshore connection points by using offshore hubs to collect power from multiple sites.
