The first hint of a Paris revolt?
STATES members should today debate the report on the long-awaited electricity strategy for the island.
There’s a lot to discuss, not least cost, and the extent of the ambition of the programme.
An issue closer to the margins, but also very relevant to the debate, will be the island’s international commitments over climate change.
They’re not new. The States agreed a climate change policy for the island, setting the target to be carbon neutral by 2050, back in 2020.
That was reinforced the following year by local representation at the much-vaunted COP26 where the islands, and the UK, reached agreement to extend the UK’s ratification of the Paris Agreement to Guernsey.
It was hailed as ‘exciting news’. Deputy Jonathan Le Tocq, who made the agreement with a UK minister, said: ‘Guernsey is only small, but it too has its part to play in managing climate change.’
The winds of change aren’t turning backwards, but while Guernsey faces its financial challenges, the mutterings on the sidelines about the cost to Guernsey of mitigating climate change, while other, larger polluters are inactive in this area, grow louder.
It would be a surprise to see the electricity strategy rejected.
But it would be no surprise if a fair number of politicians start to express reservations about the direction of travel and its implications for the exchequer.