Lacklustre policy fails to energise

Given that it deals with the most fundamental issue of our times – climate crisis and carbon emissions – that it quite surprising.

This, after all, is a 30-year policy that is intended to set the island on its course to a decarbonised future, where at last on-island renewables such as solar, wind, wave and tidal become more than a dream and the island can do its bit in saving the planet.

Partly, the low-energy response can be attributed to the timing of the policy’s release. It was one of 19 States policies hurried out to beat a publication deadline.

And with the education debate raging, Covid-19 spreading and Flybe falling from grace it was always going to struggle to grab the public’s attention.

But it is more than that. As a ‘high level’ paper the policy is long on objectives and short on detail. There is not much to get excited about.

It lays out what are the major issues but offers very few answers.

Where it does set a firm policy – adopting a target of net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest – it is simply following the UK.

A more ambitious policy might have raised the pulse. Jersey pledged last year to reach carbon neutrality by 2030, a full two decades earlier.

Along with the Isle of Man, the Government of Jersey has already targeted reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. E&I has instead opted for an interim target of reducing emissions by 57% on 1990 levels by 2030.

One of the factors holding the policy back is that many of the mechanisms required to make a real difference sit in another committee’s toolbox. Those islanders who do engage with the 63-page policy will read lots about directing other States bodies to conduct reviews, give directions, draw up regulations and launch technical consultations.

The committee would argue that this is all part of a high-level policy.

But after several years of waiting – and a budget of £375,000 – it all lacks dynamism.