As a statement of political determination to turn Britain green it could not have been clearer. In 2006, Palace of Westminster officials commissioned plans that would see the Houses of Parliament powered by a giant 35-metre wind turbine in Victoria Gardens, solar panels on the roof and devices to use energy from the flow of the Thames. The intention was to make “a bold statement to the nation on government commitment to renewable energy”.

But now the plans are being scaled back and none of the carbon-saving ideas will be included in the forthcoming overhaul of the complex’s energy systems. Even an apparently simple proposal to install double glazing in the building’s draughty windows looks in doubt.

The high cost of greening the buildings, the lack of wind and sun and concerns that the historic importance of the buildings could be compromised by the alterations all contributed to the decision to take more modest measures, which will include taking parliament partly “off-grid” with a biomass power station in the cellar and a borehole to supply fresh water to avoid the need for carbon-thirsty bottled water.

It is a strategy that exemplifies the public sector’s struggle to cut greenhouse gas emissions from its vast estate, which, according to figures revealed yesterday, has a bigger carbon footprint than the whole of Kenya. It is estimated the public sector spends £4bn a year on energy, yet even the government’s own advisers admit officials are not doing enough to reduce the environmental impact that represents. “The majority of government departments are still failing to make their new buildings and refurbishments sustainable, and many of those using and operating public buildings have little idea of their energy efficiency or how to improve it,” the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment said in a statement earlier this year.

Government targets set in 2006 state that carbon emissions from government offices must be cut by 30% by 2020, relative to 1999-2000 levels. On 1 December this year, Lord Turner’s climate change committee, which acts as an independent adviser to the government on climate change targets, announced that greenhouse gas emissions across the UK economy must be slashed by 34% by 2020. In addition, all new public buildings should be zero-carbon by 2018.

“Emissions reductions from buildings, and public buildings in particular, will be essential to meeting those targets,” said John Alker, director of public affairs at the UK Green Building Council, which is lobbying the government to slash the carbon footprint of the public estate. He added that the public sector was responsible for more than a third of new buildings and large-scale refurbishments.

The Palace of Westminster is one of the most polluting public buildings in the country. It pumps out 11,983 tonnes of CO2 a year, and has been awarded a G rating - the worst possible under a system that became mandatory for public buildings on 1 October.

Even the office of Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy and Climate Change on Whitehall Place in central London was given a G rating. “DECC’s energy efficiency is limited by the fact that the department’s building is a grade II listed heritage building, circa 1900,” said a spokeswoman. “Its age and design makes it inherently difficult to match the energy efficiency standards of modern buildings.”

Even new buildings perform badly. The Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, which was designed by the architect Daniel Libeskind and opened in 2002, scored a G, the same as the museum’s 91-year-old London headquarters. London’s City Hall scored E despite opening just six years ago, when its architect, Foster & Partners, claimed it would be a “virtually non-polluting public building”.

The director of estates at the Palace of Westminster, Mel Barlex, said some of the more ambitious proposals for cutting the complex’s carbon footprint had been dropped because they would not pay back quickly enough on the investment. He said a new policy on carbon footprint reduction would be drawn up in the new year, and options included acquiring “green” energy from the national grid and experiments with tidal turbines.

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Britain was given a sharp reminder of the dangers to its energy supplies today when Gazprom warned western Europe could be hit by gas shortages. The Russian gas provider said a long-running row with Ukraine could disrupt supplies to Europe this winter.

The fears were raised just 24 hours before Russia hosts a meeting of the world’s major gas suppliers to set up an Opec-style production cartel that could also push up the price of energy in the UK and elsewhere.

Energy experts warned that the two events demonstrated Russia was using energy as a political weapon and argued Britain should fast-track its switch to renewable power to reduce its dependence on unpredictable carbon fuel suppliers.

Russia first triggered fears of an energy “Cold War” two years ago and again last year when it threatened to cut off gas first to the Ukraine and then to Belarus.

This time Russia is threatening Ukraine over an alleged $2bn of arrears. Although Russia exports a relatively small amount of gas to Britain, such difficulties could push up prices for alternative supplies from Norway or elsewhere.

Viktor Zubkov, who is Russian first deputy minister as well as chairman of Gazprom, said: “We cannot rule out that the position of the Ukrainian side and certain steps, which are linked to gas transit through Ukrainian territory, could lead to a disruption of supply stability to Europe.”

The Moscow company said it offered to let Kiev redeem its debt by allowing Gazprom to offset it against transit fees for next year. “So far no solution has been found because of the non-constructive position of the Ukrainian side,” Zubkov said.

Some 80% of Russian gas exports to Europe flow through Ukraine, which insisted it would ensure the transit of supplies to European Union countries over 2009. “Ukraine is ready to give guarantees of uninterrupted gas supplies in 2009 to European gas consumers,” said Oleksander Shlapak, chief economic aide to the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko.

The promise did little to reduce tensions. Andris Piebalgs, EU energy commissioner, indicated he was ready to travel to Moscow early in the new year for emergency talks with the Russians and said he was “very worried.”

Meanwhile, a loose grouping of gas producers, known as the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, is to meet in Moscow tomorrow to sign a charter to formalise the organisation, officials at the Russian energy ministry said.

More than a dozen gas-exporting nations from around the world have been meeting since 2001, but the body has no formal membership or management. Experts from member states met last month to discuss the draft charter, and ministerial representatives are expected to sign it at the meeting, which has been driven by Russia in cooperation with Iran and Qatar.

The three countries, which together account for nearly a third of the world’s natural gas exports, agreed this year to form a “gas troika” for joint exploration and production, in a move that sent shock waves through importing nations.

Russian deputy prime minister Igor Sechin said last week the forum would work along similar lines to Opec, but that it would be wrong to see it as an attempt to corner the market and to force up prices.

“The work that it does will be similar to that of Opec, but I want to stress that there is no talk now about any specific deals. It is simply a question of protecting the interests of producers and coordinating their work,” said Sechin at the Opec ministerial meeting in Oran, Algeria, last week.

David Clark, a former UK government adviser and chairman of the Russia Foundation thinktank, said he was concerned Russia and its energy allies were trying to carve up the market and further develop the use of energy as a political weapon.

“Despite the downward trend of oil and gas currently the long-term supply-demand picture suggests that prices are going to rise and this is going to be a continuing problem,” he said.

“Britain and the European Union need to collectively pressure Russia to stand by its existing commitments to act as a responsible energy partner.

“But it also points up the need for countries such as Britain and North America to work together to find the kind of scientific fixes that will enable them to build a post-carbon future.”

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Motorists may soon be driving cars powered by kelp and algae after scientists in Scotland and Ireland won European funding today for a new research project to create “mari-fuels” - the marine equivalent to plant-based biofuels.

Marine scientists based in Oban north of Glasgow are to lead a €6m (£5m) research programme which will investigate ways of converting seaweeds and plant algae into fuel as an alternative to the increasingly controversial use of food crops to produce bio-fuels. Fuels produced from plants are, in theory at least, carbon neutral and for that reason an attractive alternative to petrol.

The Scottish Association for Marine Sciences (Sams) laboratory has been pioneering techniques for exploiting the UK’s vast quantities of wild seaweed stocks, particularly kelp, the ubiquitous, brownish weed which is common along the British coastline.

Ministers want 2.5% of all the petrol and diesel used in the UK to be from renewables sources, as the crops grown to produce the plants used in the fuel mixture absorb the CO2 released by the fuel, reducing its impact on climate change.

But unlike the plants currently used for bio-diesel such as oil seed rape, sunflower oil or palm oil, seaweed naturally grows at an extremely fast rate and it avoids taking valuable agricultural land out of food production or destroying rainforest - key concerns of environmentalists.

It is also likely to be more easily converted into ethanol, then mixed with diesel to create bio-diesel, or into methane, which could be burnt for electricity.

The EU funding, supplemented by money from economic development agencies in the UK and Ireland, will be shared by scientists at Sams, and scientists at Queens University in Belfast, the University of Ulster, and the Institutes of Technology in Dundalk and Sligo in Ireland.

Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, said the BioMara research project was another significant boost in the quest to find alternative fuel sources and also economic development in marginal rural areas.

“The development of mari-fuels could have a lasting impact on remote and rural communities by providing locally produced, relatively cheap, low impact fuel as well as serving the local public transport infrastructure,” he said.

Dr Ben Wilson, who heads an informal “blue energy” research group at SAMS involved in marine sources of renewable energy, said one of the major problems with using agricultural crops for bio-fuels was that it wasted potential food sources.

Marine fuel sources such as farmed or wild kelp, “completely side-step that argument”. He added: “We won’t have kelp fuel in every forecourt but it will be a niche in this requirement to produce alternatives to hydrocarbon fuel sources.”

Research at the Sams laboratory also suggest that seaweed has another valuable quality - it thrives on the potentially damaging waste discharged by the salmon farms which dot Scotland’s coastline. Salmon excrete ammonia and nitrates which, in concentrated doses, pollute surrounding waters.

But these chemicals are also nutrients for seaweed and sea urchins - a delicacy in Europe and Japan - and other commercial marine life such as mussels and oysters. Sams scientists believe exploiting the waste from fish farms could have substantial environmental benefits.

The laboratory has tested the theory at Loch Duart salmon farm in north-west Scotland, which has planned to commercially market the seaweed and sea urchins cultivated near its fish-farm cages. Seaweed grown near the farm doubled in size in a month.

Kelp is already highly sort after by the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries because of its chemical, culinary and medicinal properties. Kelp harvesters in the Western Isles can earn £250 a day and one local producer recently estimated his firm would need to cut kelp 24 hours a day to satisfy demand.

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Do the environmental and energy crises driving so many of today’s headlines actually represent a unique opportunity for revitalizing the global economy? That is the argument that Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Thomas L. Friedman advances in his latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008). Steve Mirsky, a staff editor and writer for Scientific American and host of its Science Talk podcast, spoke with Friedman about his book in August; what follows is adapted from that conversation, which can be heard/read in full here. –The Editors

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Dear EarthTalk: How can the new Obama administration and/or Congress undo the many antienvironmental actions the Bush administration undertook over the last eight years, including the obstruction of Bill Clinton’s landmark “roadless rule” legislation? — Ann Lyman, Lake Tahoe, CA

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Editorial: In just 10 years’ time more than half of Britain’s power will have to come from global markets

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Geothermal energy generation in Africa could take a leap forward after exploratory studies in Kenya exceeded all expectations. From SciDev.Net, part of the Guardian Environment Network

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Emissions trading scheme (ETS)

The cap and trade scheme limits industrial emissions and forces companies to pay to pollute by buying permits for each tonne of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The permits are to be traded in an auction system. The new law revises the ETS which has been operating in embryo since 2005. This scheme is supposed to supply around half the greenhouse gas cuts. The draft exempts some sectors from paying on competition grounds. But Germany wants to vastly expand the exemptions and Poland wants its power stations’ permits for free.

Effort-sharing

This law covers the other half of pollution total from sources not subject to the ETS, such as emissions from farming, the building sector, and transport. While the ETS is to be run on a Europe-wide basis, the effort-sharing targets are prescribed nationally. There are already agreements on new car emissions and road fuel, cutting CO2 emissions from most new cars by 19% over a three-year period from 2012 and stipulating that 10% of transport fuel is non-fossil.

Renewables

Agreement reached on Tuesday that 20% of Europe’s energy mix comes from renewable sources, such as windfarms and hydro-power, by 2020. Progressive national targets and quotas have been set, with Britain needing 15% from renewables by the deadline.

Carbon Capture and Storage

A new law envisages the establishment of 12 “demonstration” CCS projects to sequestrate and bury CO2 from power plants. Expensive and futuristic, the scheme is to be off the ground by 2015, but is the subject of dispute over which countries get the pilot projects and how they are funded.

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European officials have offered to make the continent virtually zero-carbon in an attempt to lure China and other developing countries into a new global climate deal to replace the Kyoto protocol.

Stavros Dimas, European commissioner for the environment, told the Guardian that the EU could aim for a 80-95% reduction in greenhouse gas pollution by 2050 in exchange for greater efforts by developing nations to limit their emissions.

Dimas said the pledge has “already been put on the table” and that he was awaiting responses. In return, Europe would ask developing countries to reduce their forecasted carbon pollution growth by 15-30% over the next decade. “We haven’t got any reaction, so they’re floating somewhere,” he said.

His comments came as ministers are due to arrive at UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland, which aim to set the stage for countries to agree a new global deal on global warming to succeed the Kyoto protocol.

They also come as European officials fight to agree a series of measures to cut carbon emissions across the continent 20-30% by 2020. Poland and Italy have complained about the cost of the package, which must be agreed by Gordon Brown and other European leaders in Brussels on Friday.

Dimas said “lots of concerns” had been expressed by member states, but that he was confident the targets would be approved. A failure or significant watering down of the proposals would weaken Europe’s bargaining power in the negotiations over a new global deal, which officials aim to agree at a meeting in Copenhagen this time next year. “It is only logical to expect discussions, but we will find a solution,” said Dimas.

He said the suggested European 80-95% cut for 2050 would be calculated on 1990 levels, and would include all sectors of the European economy, including the aviation and shipping industries. It is intended to maintain the EU position of limiting global temperature rise to 2°C.

“We follow up what the scientists tell us and we select [our target] accordingly, to not put our world at risk of irreversible damage,” he said. “This is the reason we are changing the long-term target.”

Dimas said the 80-95% cut was “still being discussed with the scientists” and would be published in a position paper next month. “I don’t want to scare, not only the developing countries but also the developed. We should do it in a smooth way.” The pledge would force the UK government to reassess its new Climate Change Act, which aims for 80% carbon cuts by 2050.

Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and director of the Energy and Resources Institute in Delhi, said the 2050 European pledge was unlikely to impress developing countries, who wanted more action from all rich countries in the short-term. He said: “Unless the developed world comes up with strong, clear targets for 2020 themselves, I think it is unlikely the developing world will commit itself to reductions.”

He said rich countries including the US needed to agree targets of 25-40% by 2020. “I think the most important development that could take place is for the US to make a major commitment. The extent to which the US is prepared to go is fundamental in creating the right atmosphere.”

British officials are confident that President-elect, Barack Obama, will commit the US to such targets next year. They expect the negotiations on a Copenhagen deal to make little progress until then.

Henry Derwent, former UK chief climate negotiator and now head of the International Emissions Trading Association, said: “I cannot conceive of this problem being solved without a positive and well-intentioned US president, but he has domestic problems to resolve. I can’t imagine that [Obama] as president will be driven by what the international community expects him to do.”

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EU leaders yesterday agreed to combat climate change by ordering a fifth of Europe’s energy mix to come from renewable sources within 12 years.

The agreement, hailed as “landmark” deal and a breakthrough by politicians and the green lobby alike, came ahead of a crucial EU summit on Thursday, at which 27 prime ministers and presidents aim to finalise the ambitious package to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020.

The agreement reached yesterday in negotiations between government officials from across the union, the European parliament, and the European Commission paves the way for a new law obliging all EU countries to meet national targets for renewable energy.

Two contentious points had threatened to derail the legislation – the insistence that biofuels comprise 10% of transport fuel by the 2020 deadline, and an attempt by Italy to loosen the law by ordering a review of renewable energy progress in 2014. The review date was retained, but the compulsory nature of the overall target and the national quotas also survived.

The biofuels question has become an incendiary issue over the past year because of soaring food costs and shortages partly blamed on the conversion of land to grow fuel rather than crops.

Expert opinion has turned on the value of biofuels in combating climate change since at their current level of development, they are seen broadly as part of the problem rather than as part of the solution.

The 10% target was retained, but the equation was changed to include cars and trains running on electric power while the European Commission is to report within two years on the impact on land use of biofuels and on their “sustainability.”

To count towards the 10% quota, the biofuels used in the transport sector must save a minimum of 35% of greenhouse gases compared with their fossil fuel equivalent.

Experts also argue that using the crop-based products as a petrol or diesel substitute is also misplaced as much greater energy savings can be had by, for example, heating buildings with biofuels.

Greenpeace, usually a fierce critic of the EU climate change policies, described the agreement as a “landmark.”

“A ray of light amid the gloomy stone age positions of the EU member states on other elements of the climate package,” the campaigners said. “We give the EU 8 out of 10 for its renewables deal.”

Frauke Thies, Greenpeace’s renewables expert, voiced reservations only about the biofuels factor.

Claude Turmes, the Luxembourg Green MEP who led the negotiations for the European Parliament, said he had “mixed feelings” about the biofuels factor.

“Despite mounting scientific evidence on the dangers of biofuels, we were unable to completely revise this wrongheaded target… renewable energy will be put at the very heart of EU energy policies.”

The European Wind Energy Association, a lobby group, said yesterday’s deal put Europe in the lead of “the energy revolution the world needs”. It calculated that, if the law is properly implemented, more than a third of Europe’s electricity will be generated from renewable sources by 2020.

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