CLIMATE change “appears to be slipping down political agendas”, the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, told peers on Wednesday, in a House of Lords debate about energy policy.
Bishop Usher spoke in the talk after attending a mass lobby in Parliament Square urging the Government to take more urgent motion on environmental issues (News, 9 July, Comment, 4 July).
“I’m not normally someone who joins such events but, for me, it is important for us to listen to the Climate Coalition and the good many people who find themselves raising this issue of climate change and nature loss, since it appears to be slipping down political agendas,” he told peers.
In the talk on the Government’s proposals for energy infrastructure upgrades, he welcomed an approach which he said “broadly aligns” with goals to succeed in net zero by 2050, and to depend on cleaner sources of power by 2030.
He highlighted, nevertheless, the high costs faced by churches that were attempting to update their electricity network infrastructure and make it more environmentally friendly.
The PCC of St Margaret’s, Lowestoft, in his diocese, was quoted £100,000 to upgrade its system and move away from fossil fuel heating, he said.
He called for cheaper and easier ways for alternative electricity sources, equivalent to solar panels, to be connected to the National Grid, suggesting that this is able to help to incentivise churches to put in such technology, as they might also provide energy to their local communities.
In response, the Government whip, Lord Wilson, said that independent connection providers “may prove to be cheaper and faster”.
The cost of using power provided from renewable energy sources was also a difficulty, Bishop Usher said; the estimates for renewable energy for Church House, Westminster, had risen from £2 million to £3.5 million since February.
Grid capability was also a priority, Bishop Usher said, especially within the east of England, where much offshore energy was produced. “We have a situation during which grid infrastructure continues to be being developed reactively, based on project applications, slightly than a longer-term systems need,” he said. He called for higher long-term planning that anticipated, slightly than reacted to, demand.
The protection of natural habitats needed to be considered when developing energy infrastructure, he said, and, to that end, the acknowledgement within the policy that there “must be a greater sense of care around reconnecting essential habitats, green corridors, and biodiversity stepping stones, not just for nature but for people in reinstating public footpaths, cycle ways, and ways to get people to attach with and be outdoors in nature.”
“But how will it occur in point of fact?” he asked. “In putting on this linear cabling, ancient hedgerows often must be removed. How can or not it’s done in such a solution to restore a few of the habitats which are being removed?”
Underground cabling, though, helped to make sure “fewer harmful long-term impacts” than pylons, he said, with improvements for “residents, for the environment, for settings of heritage assets, for tranquillity, and for the countryside”.
Energy policy ultimately must be developed “in such a way that folks, place, nature, and landscape may be protected and thrive”, Bishop Usher concluded.
