In response to my letter regarding the present Government’s shameful granting of over 100 oil and gas licences, Mathew Biddlecombe (August 17) asks how we are to generate enough energy to meet the targets set by Net Zero. 

In terms of energy generation, the present target is for all energy to be low carbon by 2035. Progress to this has been called into question by the Government’s own independent advisers, the Climate Change Committee, who have said without positive action the target will not be met.

An example of the Government’s lamentable performance is that last year in England only two onshore wind turbines were completed as opposed to 19 in war-torn Ukraine. Two months ago, the House of Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, which has a Tory majority, said: ‘The Government must overturn the de facto ban on one of the cheapest forms of renewable energy ­— onshore wind.’

Opposition parties have more substantive proposals. The present Labour Party policy is more ambitious and is coupled with a massive push to insulate 19 million homes in a decade. That plan calls for 99 per cent of clean power by 2030, consisting of 71 per cent wind and solar, with the rest nuclear, green hydrogen and other renewables, leaving only about one per cent of electricity to be powered by gas.

 With the cost of onshore wind electricity now six times less than that produced by gas, not only is this good for the environment, good for UK jobs, good for growth and good for energy security but it is predicted by 2030 to save the UK £93 billion. Further to this, a think tank has estimated that Labour’s proposed state-owned electricity generating company Great British Energy, could save British consumers £21 billion a year.

Mathew Biddlecombe concluded: “We desperately need some joined up thinking within government, but this appears in very short supply at the moment.” I totally agree. With the present slow progress and retrograde decisions it appears obvious that it is only with a change in the Government that this will occur.

Mike Baldwin

Thorverton