Government warned not to cut spending on green technologies

Tim Yeo, chairman of parliament’s cross-party energy and climate change committee, has warned the governemnt not to cut spening on low-carbon technolgies such as windfarms and clean coal technology.

In a report in the Guardian Yeo, who was an environment minister in John Major’s government, said reducing spending on low-carbon technology would be like “cutting the budget for Spitfires in 1939”.

There are fears that the government will slim down commitments to sustainable technology when it publishes its comprehensive spending review later in the month.

Yeo says he is concerned that upfront funding for clean coal technology will be delayed or worse; money for an upgrade of north-eastern ports needed for the establishment of large windfarms is unlikely to be secured; the Carbon Trust and the Energy Saving Trust will be scrapped; and funding for feed-in tariffs and renewable heat incentives will be reduced.

If there is the slightest change to these mechanisms, Yeo says, the UK’s renewables sector will become too unpredictable to survive.

Instead, Yeo told the Guardian the government should be looking to increase spending.