KEY POINTS:
LONDON - Britain's energy strategy is an incoherent mess which is unlikely to ensure future supplies or succeed in fighting climate change, according to a report by academics published today.
"Britain's energy policy just doesn't stack up. It won't deliver security. It won't deliver on our commitments on climate change. It falls short of what the world's poorest countries need," the leader of the Oxford University Taskforce report on energy security, politics and poverty, Chris Patten, said.
The former minister said the government's latest attempt to patch up its "hotchpotch" of energy and climate change policies -- last month's Energy White Paper -- only highlighted the mess.
The report says Britain still has no coherent strategy for replacing the one third of UK electricity generation which is soon to be retired, much of it nuclear, leaving companies unsure of what to build and therefore building nothing.
The report's panel said that policy on energy security, climate change and development aid is muddled and ineffective largely because it is handled by different government departments all pursuing different goals.
It also criticises costly government dithering over whether to build new nuclear power plants.
The report urged a tougher, united EU stance against Russia -- which supplies about a quarter of Europe's gas -- and said Britain should press EU countries to open up their gas markets.
The lack of competition in some markets could allow Russian gas giant Gazprom to dictate prices as it buys up supply companies in those countries.
"A clear-sighted and united approach to Russia is needed... There are two principal concerns about Russia. The first is about Russia's apparent wish to use natural resources in the pursuit of political ends... There is also uncertainty about future levels of supply from Russia," it said.
The report warned the European Union's emissions trading scheme (ETS) is not tough enough on polluters to achieve the bloc's own target of a 20 per cent cut in emissions by 2020 and calls on Britain's to push for reform of the ETS.
Britain will probably meet its Kyoto target for cutting emissions but this is largely because of a decline in industrial activity in the 1990s, not government policy.
The panel said the EU must get India, China and the United States to co-operate on efforts to avert climate change caused by fossil fuel burning, because European countries are unable to make significant progress on their own.
Developing carbon capture and storage technolgy to trap harmful gases from coal-fired power stations -- particularly in the rapidly growing economies of India and China --will be crucial in fighting climate change and needs much more investment, it said.
- REUTERS
