PERHAPS NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL

There has been an interesting report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that suggests that Russia's invasion of Ukraine will have long-lasting effects on energy supply and markets, a new report suggests. The IEA states the world faces its first "truly global energy crisis" as a result.

The report also noted that unaffordable energy bills remain a huge problem, driven up as the exports of oil and gas have been restricted.  The IEA suggests that energy crisis should also be seen as a turning point, speeding up the world's transition to green energy. 

"With unrelenting geopolitical and economic concerns, energy markets remain extremely vulnerable, and the crisis is a reminder of the fragility and unsustainability of the current global energy system. The heaviest burden is falling on poorer households where a larger share of income is spent on energy", the report warned.

The Paris-based agency calculated the value of government spending to protect customers from price rises currently stands at $550 billion  (£473 billion) worldwide, and is set to rise further, particularly in the UK and Germany. The IEA said the most effective policies to protect customers from the impact of soaring costs, and changing energy infrastructure, had been introduced by the likes of the US, Japan and Korea.

The IEA also cited the REPowerEU scheme, which aims to make European Union (EU) countries independent of Russian energy by 2030. The IEA predicts that Russia's share of global energy trade will fall from 20% currently to 13% by 2030. The report also said that for the first time ever, its forecasts - based on current prices and government policies - showed that global demand for every fossil fuel will either be peaking or reaching a plateau.

"[We predict] coal use falls back within the next few years, natural gas demand reaches a plateau by the end of the decade, and rising sales of electric vehicles (EVs) mean that oil demand levels off in the mid-2030s before ebbing slightly to mid-century", it concluded.

Although the UK and Europe's sanctions on Russian oil imports did little to dent demand from India and China this year, it found that the conflict in Ukraine had sped up investment in greener energy sources. The UK, for example, accelerated its spending on Direct Air Capture (DAC) technologies - a method of removing harmful carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Countries which have agreed to reach net zero, where they are not adding to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, by 2050 include the UK, Japan, Korea, Canada and the EU. The report also cautioned, however, that in order to reach net zero emissions by 2050, clean energy investment would need to be above $4 trillion by 2030. At current levels, it is predicted to reach only half of that figure.

While the IEA isn't pulling its punches here: this is a global crisis, of unprecedented breadth and complexity, and despite the impact of Covid, it's essentially Russia's fault.

The report points out that while the pain is spread around the world - stoking the rising cost of living and creating inflationary pressures - it's the poor who will suffer the most because they spend more of their income on energy (and food, which is also made more expensive by high energy costs). Many will lose access to electricity altogether.

The IEA also believes the crisis is an opportunity, but, It does not accept at all to the idea that investment in "clean" energy such as renewables might be partially responsible for high prices. This IEA report sounds a call to arms: more investment is needed in clean tech, not less - and stronger policies will be required to secure the necessary investment.

The IEA claims will make energy more secure and more affordable and also suggests that fossil fuel use, which has climbed alongside economic growth since the industrial revolution, may soon peak - before settling into a decline.  

The problem is that the IEA's projection of demand for oil and gas is effectively a death sentence for the planet, with oil use to rise and then plateau in the mid 2030s, gas to rise before levelling off by the end of the decade. The IPCC are telling us that fossil fuels need to reduce by 45% to have any chance of remaining within 1.5°c of warming.

The Conservative Party (and recent Conservative government’s when not dismembering themselves over BREXIT) have always struggled with the concept of green sustainable energy ( in its various forms ) and choosing to put common sense before profit, let along struggling with the possibility of community beneficial energy production and ownership. 

Even with their periodic attempts at green washing, started by David Cameron petting a husky in the artic pre 2010, the whole idea has not sat well with the libertarian free marketeers. It’s is important to remember that it was the Lib Dem - Conservative coalition government who extended the UK’s reckless commitment to Nuclear energy ( with some very iffy commercial partners ) while making life much more difficult for the growth of sustainable green energy. 

Now we all know that Big energy has deep pockets and close links with fat divided profits at the City of London - which in turn has close links to some of the inhabitants of the Palace of Westminster. Boundaries are conveniently blurred - EDF ( a French State owned energy company ) won the contact to build a lucrative Nuclear energy plant - post the 2015 Westminster general election ( judgment day for the Lib Dems ) a former Lib Dem energy minister found a well salaried job with EDF…

The current Conservative Westminster government given half a chance will probably quite happily drop all the successive Westminster governmental commitments to renewables as quickly as a snowball would melt in hell. The previous but one PM was effectively stitched up by the fact the COP 26 was in Glasgow and difficult to ignore. 

The dropping of the COP26 post from the Cabinet, and the new PM’s decision not to go and the effective blocking of the King from going to the COP26 Conference in Egypt certainly sends a clear message that saving the planet ( and us ) and growing green energy is just not that important. Although the current PM is struggling to give himself some wiggle room to avoid a new PR disaster… which could result from non attendance… so much for business as usual… 

GROW THE CASE FOR INDEPENDENCE

Plaid Cymru and Wales Green Party create Future Cymru Forum to grow case for independence

Leaders of the two leading pro-independence parties in Wales have announced the formation of a new Forum to grow the case for independence. The Forum will consult, research and develop a ground-breaking body of work to build a "bridge of ideas to the future". Plaid Cymru and The Wales Green Party will engage widely, working together to help build the economic, social and environmental case for an independent Wales.

Announcing the creation of ‘Future Cymru Forum’ at the party’s Annual Conference, Plaid Cymru Leader Adam Price said it was further evidence of a “genuine agenda of reaching out to others, across the party divide, to join hands to find a shared route to independence that will produce tangible benefits for all our people.”

The aim is produce outputs that will be inspirational but grounded in robust evidence and argument that complements and supports the work of other groups. The Future Cymru Forum project will focus on topics such as:

1. Setting a framework for debate and research on economy in an independent Wales, taking note of new economy thinking, environmental value and wellbeing goals; 
2. Creating an economic plan for an independent Wales in different social and political scenarios, risks and opportunities.
3. Modelling the macro-economic impact of an independent Wales for a range of different scenarios, including forecasting of social and environmental value and GDP growth over first fifteen years.
4. Modelling the public expenditure, contributions to the foundation economy, deficit and debt over the first fifteen years, under different tax and expenditure scenarios.
5. Considering how an independent Wales could encourage a richer mix of viable business models to create environmental and public value
6. Creating ambitious new financial instruments to fund investment in a new energy future for Wales and to tackle climate change.

Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price said:

"The Future Cymru Forum will ensure that the case for Welsh independence continues to grow, both economically and environmentally.

"Both parties recognise the need to explore the key questions surrounding independence more deeply, including the central question of how a new Welsh economy would work. In tough times, working together can turn things around. Our aim is to build confidence in a flourishing independent future for Wales.

"If we are to win independence for Wales we need as broad an alliance of possible who share the vision of a nation that is fair, inclusive, diverse and green. The Future Wales Forum is another step towards realising that vision and ensuring that Cymru's Future is in Cymru's hands."

"I strongly believe in a genuine agenda of reaching out to others, across the party divide, to join hands to find a shared route to independence that will produce tangible benefits for all our people.”

Anthony Slaughter, Wales Green Party leader said:

“I hope that the aims of Future Cymru Forum - to develop economic and environmental plans for an independent Wales - will convince, inspire and enthuse many people across our nation that vision can become reality.

“Working together, we can show positive and hopeful alternatives to the destructive agenda pursued by the Tories in Westminster that is damaging people and planet alike.

“As more and more people are persuaded by the idea of independence as a means of securing a fairer and greener future, The Wales Green Party looks forward to working with Plaid Cymru to undertake the important research required to ensure that the case for our nation to stand on its own two feet is more compelling than ever before.

A PEOPLE’S PLAN

Plaid launches radical “People’s Plan” to tackle cost of living as Tories have “no mandate, no credibility and no legitimacy”

Slashing energy prices, freezing rents and cheaper public transport are at the heart of Plaid Cymru’s plan to protect the most vulnerable from the worst excesses of the cost-of-living crisis, Adam Price will say on Friday.

Speaking ahead of Conference and in light of Prime Minister Liz Truss's resignation statement on Thursday afternoon, Adam Price said:

“The Conservative UK government contempt for democracy, their fratricidal scheming, their sacrifice of everything and everyone on the altar of their own greed and personal ambition has culminated in the shortest premiership in the history of UK Prime Ministers.

“The first and hopefully last act of the next Conservative Prime Minister has to be to call a General Election. They have no mandate, no credibility and no legitimacy left. The Tories face A wipe-out at the next election in Wales. The choice we face is between getting rid of them for a few years with a UK Labour government or getting rid of them forever with independence.”

Turning to Plaid Cymru’s practical solutions to the cost-of-living crisis, Mr Price will set out the “socially just and instantly deliverable” People’s Plan - a progressive set of measures aimed at targeting help where it is needed the most. Measures include:

• Cancelling the October price hike, restoring last winter’s significantly lower price cap of £1,277 a year, and extending the price cap beyond the six-month limit for households and businesses.
• Provide an immediate uplift of £25 to Universal Credit and commit to uprating all benefits in line with inflation from April next year.
• Introducing a rent freeze in the private rental sector and a ban on evictions this winter as a first step to a system of rent control.
• Freezing rail fares for 2023, with more off-peak tickets sold at half-price, and capping bus fares at £2.
• Expanding the universal school meals policy to all secondary school pupils, starting with all those children whose families receive Universal Credit.
• Providing fair pay in the public sector.

 Price will also criticise the Labour Welsh Government’s refusal to engage in the debate surrounding the progressive use of income tax as a way of properly rewarding public sector workers and will invite the Welsh Government to work with Plaid Cymru to this end.

Speaking ahead of the Annual Conference, Plaid Cymru Leader Adam Price said:

“The Conservative UK government's contempt for democracy, their fratricidal scheming, their sacrifice of everything and everyone on the altar of their own greed and personal ambition has culminated in the shortest premiership in the history of UK Prime Ministers.

"The first and hopefully last act of the next Conservative Prime Minister has to be to call a General Election. They have no mandate, no credibility and no legitimacy left.

"The Tories face wipe-out at the next election in Wales. The choice we face is between getting rid of them for a few years with a UK Labour government or getting rid of them forever with independence.”

In a withering attack on the chaos which has engulfed Westminster in recent weeks, Adam Price MS is expected to tell delegates in Llandudno:

“Enough is enough, because the fall out of decisions taken by Number 10 – the office of budget irresponsibility – goes beyond the money markets.

"Make no mistake, the cuts are coming – ripping through not trickling down into our public services.

"If the Welsh Way is to mean anything it must involve made in Wales solutions too.

"Too frequently and inexcusably - ministers here have sought the solace of relative political safety by criticising others rather than affecting change themselves.

"Where has Labour’s radicalism gone? We know we won’t find it with Keir Starmer but we hoped to find it closer to home.

"Where is their signature of solidarity in these most urgent of times?

"Make no mistake, this is an emergency - the blue lights are flashing, and we can be the first responders. The first with ideas, the first with solutions, the first to demand action.

"Our ‘People’s Plan’ is both socially just and immediately deliverable.

"It makes public transport more affordable, the pay packet go further, housing provision fairer, and tax rates more progressive.

In a direct appeal to the Labour Welsh Government, Adam Price is expected to say:

“I make this offer to the Labour Welsh Government.

"Work with us and we will work with you – phase two of our Cooperation Agreement can be the ‘People’s Plan’ – if we are all for Cymru and want a Cymru for all let us find common ground for the common good – people before politics, nation before party.

"The Tories won’t but we can. Though not enough, we have the tools to make a difference – there is a way – all we need is the will.”

You can read The People's Plan here. 

DON’T GET IN THE WAY

The one lesson that should have been rammed home as a result of the current energy crisis is that these islands need to achieve energy independence by developing sustainable energy sources that are not dependent upon imported oil and gas, unstable autocratic states and energy companies that are simply driven by ramping up vast dividend profits. 

Successive Westminster government’s from Tony Blair onwards have entirely failed to even come close to achieving this. What we have had over the years has been visionless New Labour, Conservative-Lib DeM and then Conservative governments in Westminster, which have remained hand in glove with despotic oil and gas-producing regimes in the Middle East ( aside from the vassal like relationship between the UK and Saudi Arabia ) who have had has little real interest in renewables. 

The relationship between the energy cartel members and the Westminster government’s is close to being corrupt. Teresa May’s wobbly and unstable Brexit fixated Westminster government, was followed by Boris Johnson’s majority Conservative government which continued to actively work to pull the rug out from under the renewables sector something that has cost highly skilled jobs here in Wales. 

Now Liz Truss, an ex Lib Dem former Shell employee is running the show and to all intents and purposes she is indifferent to developing renewable energies, favours pursuing further exploration of hydro carbons and as a die hard unionist hostile to devolution. So any real and meaningful change in relation to the development of sustainable renewable energy is to all infested and purposes unlikely. 

It should now be clear that neither the Conservatives and Labour are not going to change or upset the exceptionally comfortable lucrative relationship between the Westminster focused political party’s and the big 6 Cartel members which is something that has done many of us no favours over the last twenty five years. 

It has also despite some progress failed to deliver energy independence for these islands, which are still far to dependent of hydrocarbons from unstable regions of our planet and some very questionable despotic regimes, with whom Westminster is quite happy to deal with.  If Westminster is incapable or unwilling to develop sustainable energy, then it should not stand in the way of the devolved government’s in Wales and Scotland. 

Back in the spring of 2021 the news was released about the developers being chosen to develop off shore wind energy fields of our coast is actually some good news. That said, once again Wales will receive little or no benefit from the economic exploitation of its own natural resources, except this time the waters are off-shore rather than inland or underground. Why should the fees go to the Crown and the UK Treasury? And not to Wales? 

The Welsh Government should have ( but didn’t ) insist that decisions about the use of Wales’ natural resources should be made in Wales for the benefit of Wales. Even without devolved powers they should have been able to set up a Welsh national energy company immediately to develop our own Welsh-owned sector and have  at least explored the  possibilities of setting up an embryonic sovereign wealth fund for receipts, rents received, etc.

The two companies - BP and EnBW ( described by the BBC as a German energy firm)  have been chosen as the preferred developers for a major new wind farm off the north Wales coast. Both companies are effectively the preferred developers for a 500 square kilometre lease, situated approximately 30 kilometre off the north Wales coast, and another 300 square kilometre site east of the Isle of Man. These off shore  wind farms have the potential to generate enough power for 3.4 million homes. 

Now what is worth noting in passing is that EnBW is over 90% owned by the regional government and local authorities of Baden-Wurttemberg - not they you will find any reference to that on the BBC. It is doubly ironic that the Scandinavian State-owned Vattenfall and Statkraft and largely State-owned EDF mean that citizens of other countries will own more of Wales' renewable sector than we do ourselves (and also benefit from it).

The Welsh Government has understandably stated that it is looking forward to working with the two companies. The devil, as they say, lies in the detail or perhaps in the case the literal small print, once you get beyond the spin. Understandably the Westminster government, has called this development a "major vote of confidence in the UK's green economy and net zero ambitions”. 

Now that’s all very well and good. However, it gets more interesting the further you delve, it turns out that it is the Crown Estate, not the Welsh government, which manages the seabed around Wales, as it does with the seabed of England and Northern Ireland, has also announced six proposed new offshore wind projects.

The auction of seabed rights - which was the first of its kind in a decade - apparently attracted frenzied bidding. Both the projects will now move onto the next stage in the lengthy process for acquiring rights to build out at sea - which involves assessing the potential impacts on habitats and wildlife.

The Crown Estate expects this to conclude in Spring 2022 and subject to the outcome the developers could then be granted an agreement for lease and be able to start getting their projects through the planning process - including consulting with local communities. With luck and hard work the projects could begin to generate electricity by the end of the decade.

Beyond being either a willing or a reluctant minor partner the Welsh Government has little choice in the matter but to co-operate. Of course once our nation achieves independence, then there will be no question, of course, of the Crown Estate auctioning off development rights with no direct benefit then to the people of Wales. This deal clearly  demonstrates that Wales' marine energy potential is of international significance.

The Crown Estates, plays the role of barely mentioned absentee landlord, in Cymru / Wales. As far back as March 2012  a report produced by the then Scottish Affairs Committee (in Westminster) stated that the Crown Estates management of the marine environment around Scotland lacked transparency and public consultation. 

The Crown Estate's owns portions of our coast, almost all the seabed, and some of the land beneath our feet - little appears to have changed in relation to the lack of transparency and the lack of public consultation . It owns around 65 per cent of the Welsh foreshore and riverbed, and inland, and also owns around 27,800 hectares (68,700 acres) of Welsh common land, owns the rights to the sites of fish farms, renewable energy developments, ports and marinas.  

The Westminster government (post BREXIT) if it believes in ‘local control’ should commit to having the Crown Estate's seabed and marine responsibilities and all rights related to Wales devolved to the Welsh government. Those who have dealt with the Crown Estates on a regular basis are often highly critical of the Crown Estate - back in 2012 the then Scottish Affairs Committee (in Westminster) heard that the organisation effectively behaved like an "absentee landlord" and "tax collector".

The revenues do not belong to the monarch and surplus revenue from its businesses are paid each year to the Treasury. The Crown Estates revenues in Cymru / Wales are not vast at the moment, but, the assets have what could best be described as game changing potential. That's why control of these marine and and coastal assets particularly in the case of renewables and off shore wind generated hydrogen could our nation to opportunity to reboot our economy and make a significant contribution to fighting global climate change.

Our energy and water resources including the responsibility for sewerage for the whole territory of Wales should be the responsibility of the Welsh Government. The Crown Estate still remains largely unaccountable to the people of Wales and all profits from its holdings (which includes on and off shore wind farms) are passed to the UK Westminster Government. Profits from these holdings are likely to grow significantly mostly due to the growing demand for renewable energy. 

For far too long our natural resources have been run for the benefit of others with few real or lasting benefits trickling down to the people of Wales. Ownership and control over the Crown Estates in Wales should be transferred to the Welsh Government. The final say on how our natural resources are exploited and developed should be the direct responsibility of the Welsh people (and the Welsh Government) with 85% of the profits or dividends directly benefit the people who live here rather than opaque indifferent absentee landlords. 

Westminster is incapable and unwilling to change, its leaders - in the Westminster focused political parties at least are happy with the current set up and the status quo and the institutions relationship with the City of London. Energy independence is vital, the consequences of being dependent on imported hydrocarbons from despotic regimes should now be crystal clear as is expecting the Westminster Political Parties to stand up for our nation and our needs beyond lip service.