Ed Miliband calls for more investment in British green energy

Labour’s net-zero minister tells conference that UK is trailing European allies in reaping benefits of renewable power

Ed Miliband said more public investment in areas such as floating wind energy was required. PA

Britain is sorely lacking in public investment in green energy initiatives, Labour’s shadow net-zero minister Ed Miliband has said.

Speaking at the Institute for Government’s Net Zero Conference in central London on Wednesday, he said foreign investment was important, as was the need for new strategic policies to drive the expansion of green jobs and supply chains, to benefit from the infrastructure build up.

"While Britain has done well on offshore wind generation, we've done very badly on the industrial benefits," Mr Miliband said.

European neighbours including Norway, France and Denmark are powering ahead with their renewable energy generators, he noted.

“They all in different ways have driven the supply chain and jobs in the industry,” he said, adding the benefits are the result of robust industrial policies.

Using floating wind, tidal and nuclear energy as examples, Mr Miliband said there was a strong case for public investment in those areas.

He said the climate debate had shifted massively in recent years as people now saw investment in green energy not only as the wise thing to do for the environment but also for their wallets.

“The case for climate action is now definitively the case for lower bills, energy security, good jobs and of course climate leadership, in a way that wasn’t so clearly the case a decade ago,” he said.

The energy crisis that resulted from the Ukraine war demonstrated that “we are so exposed because we are so dependent on fossil fuels”, he said.

“Green energy is not some nice-to-have luxury," he added. "It’s the only route to energy security in the dangerous world in which we live in.”

He said Ireland’s Climate Minister, Eamon Ryan, put it “very well” when he said: “No one has ever weaponised access to the sun or the wind. We need to move off fossil fuels as fast as possible, for our security, for our society and for our economy.”

Mr Miliband praised US President Joe Biden’s approach to the climate agenda, particularly on the jobs front.

With an eye on next year’s election, the Democrat leader has been touring the US touting the massive amount of jobs his multibillion green package aims to bring. Between last August, when the Inflation Reduction Act passed into law, and the end of January, companies announced more than 100,000 clean energy jobs in the US, according to advocacy group Climate Power.

Mr Miliband stressed the enormous potential Britain has to open up clean energy jobs as it makes the transition from a fossil fuel-dependent society to an eco-friendly future.

“On jobs, [which] Joe Biden has shown remarkable in my view, it’s become very clear that net zero is the opportunity for the 21st century and the global race is now on.

“And here there is an absolutely crucial role for government, shaping industrial policy for the country and providing more – I think my friends in the US administration called it 'catalytic' – public investment. Catalytic because the billions in public investment levers in tens of billions or hundreds of billions of private investment.”