"In the recently published Energy National Policy Statements, the Government has not taken on board the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee to have explicit decarbonisation goals in the Energy NPSs. Instead, it is relying on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and other market mechanisms to get the UK to where its needs to be in terms of carbon emissions. This is too narrow an approach for these critical times" says Mothiur Rahman, lawyer, Bircham Dyson Bell LLP.

"During the passage of the Energy NPSs through public and parliamentary scrutiny, environmental protection bodies raised concerns that decision making by the IPC could give rise to energy generating infrastructure that risked breaching the UK's carbon budgets. The Parliamentary Committee stated that it was "worried that, as drafted, the NPSs could lead to a second 'dash for gas'" and that it remained "adamant that the recommendation of the Committee on Climate Change that the electricity sector should be substanitally decarbonised by 2030 should be set out in the [Overarching Energy NPS] as an explicit goal for consideration in planning applications."

The Government has not taken these recommendations on board. Under the published NPSs, every project will be considered on its own merits by the IPC, without any weight given to the carbon emissions of that project. So, a gas power station might just as well get through the planning systems as much as a wind farm, all other things being equal. However, in the long term, once a gas power station is authorised and constructed, that means future generations have to live with those carbon emissions over the design life of the gas power station, which could be the next 50 years. Without a planning mechanism which takes into account carbon emission targets and the burden on future generations, there is possibly a greater risk of not achieving the carbon reduction targets for 2050 than could otherwise be the case.

The Government's reasons for not taking on board the Parliamentary Committee's recommendation is that it believes that the EU ETS, together with a carbon price floor, and with the Elecricity Market Reforms to be published today in a White Paper by the Government, will be sufficient to ensure the market brings forward the right mix of of low carbon infrastructure projects for development consent. Crucially, the Government adds: "If, over time, there is compelling evidence that existing policies are failing to achieve their objective, Government will revise them as appropriate."

In these critical times, it is simply not enough for the Government to say that it will wait for the evidence first. The precautionary principle should be applied and the Government should be looking now at ensuring that the planning system works to act as a safeguard against the risk of the market failing to bring forward the right mix of energy. The explicit targets recommended by the Climate Change Committee would be a first step in the right direction.

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