Treaty of Lisbon (No. 2)

The German Government are playing an active and supporting role in relation to the new proposals from the European Commission, and they do not believe that Germany should not be engaged in shaping the new renewables directive. Indeed, the German Government have made significant progress on renewable energy in the past 10 or 15 years, and I pay great tribute to them for that. I believe that the UK has made progress. We have doubled the amount of energy drawn from renewable sources in the past few years, and we are planning to treble it. We will have to do significantly more in the years up to 2020 if we are to meet the EU targets, but so far we have concentrated too much on the financial aspects of renewables promotion. We should not overlook some of the other problems with regulatory and planning consents that have got in the way of really moving ahead with renewable energy in this country. For example, it is a matter of great regret to me that many local authorities around the country—run by the Conservatives, the Scottish National party and even my own party—have presented a brick wall to renewables schemes. There is no place for nimbyism when it comes to climate change, but there has been far too much of it.