WIREDGOV

“The government must take local environmental concerns and their impact on communities more seriously and taking steps to rush shale gas through the planning and consenting process is misguided in the extreme.

“If shale gas is as cheap as some claim, there's no justification for giving tax breaks to the industry - and what's more, people don't want this. A report released this week by the UK Energy Research Centre 1 found that 79% of people in Britain want to see a reduction in the use of fossil fuels and support more domestic renewable energy; in other words, making fracking easier is the exact opposite of what people in this country want.

"Rather than throwing tax breaks at oil and gas companies, the government must concentrate its efforts in providing policy certainty for the energy efficiency and renewable technologies of the future. If we're going to have any chance of avoiding global temperature rises of over 2°C, 60% to 80% of existing fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground. In this context it's quite clear that opening up a whole new source of fossil fuels is entirely at odds with tackling climate change.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1. New UKERC research defines values which determine public acceptance of energy system change (16.07.2013): http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/article3045