Chris Stark on why it's "daft" not to be using onshore wind
Channel: Carbon Brief
Date: 2018-07-13

The Carbon Brief Interview: Chris Stark, Chief Executive, Committee on Climate Change

Read the full interview on Carbon Brief: https://www.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-brief-interview-chris-stark

Carbon Brief: One of the ways that you're being a bit more direct and a bit more public facing is you've been quite active on Twitter. So back in June you tweeted about starting a “daft list” of low-cost climate action that would benefit the consumer, but isn't being pursued. So I just was curious if you'd actually started that list?

Chris Stark: "...Top of my list would be onshore wind. So finding a route to market for the cheapest renewable electricity technology, it would seem to me to be the most important steps that government could take in the short term. And I do believe it is daft that that is not happening at the moment. I can speak from some authority, because we were waiting in Scotland for a long time to see that happen.

"There's more in the consenting pipeline – onshore wind – there's more in the consenting pipeline in Scotland than there is in operation at the moment. So you don't need to be a Chicago school economist to see if that volume found a route to market through an auction I suspect you'd get a very low price, and I'm extremely keen that that should happen. And I also think it would be an interesting signal that the present government gets it. I think it's a totemic issue, actually, that you can't see a way to produce the route to market for a technology like onshore wind...".

The interview was conducted by Dr Simon Evans at the Committee on Climate Change's offices in London on 6 July 2018.

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Music credit: Into Infinity artists Unrecognisable Now, Naohito Uchiyama, Languis (CC BY-NC 3.0 US).