Friends of the Earth Threaten Legal Action Against Government

New reports now show that Friends of the Earth has threatened to launch a legal challenge against the government over its fundamentally flawed plans to approve hundreds of new nuclear reactors, wind farms, power plans, electricity pylons and pipelines. The group has written to the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, warning him that the government’s plans breach environmental regulations and have not followed proper consultation.

The energy industry and ministers have been braced for a legal challenge for months now. They have been bracing themselves particularly over plans to build as many as 10 new nuclear reactors. This is the kind of plan that does not go unnoticed.

The Friends of the Earth said that they believe that these plans would result in Britain locking into a high carbon energy infrastructure. This is one of the main things that the group hoped to avoid. The plan needs to take into account the carbon emissions resulting from individual applications.

The executive director for Friends of the Earth, Andy Atkins, said that the government’s draft statements on energy are fundamentally flawed. The consultation was insufficient, the alternatives were inadequately explored, and the policies are poorly justified. They failed to assess the carbon impact that the proposed development would have on the UK’s carbon budget. Thus, these are ideas that should not be put through.

A spokesman for the government said that the statements were set in accordance with its overall carbon budgets. On top of this, many experts agree that these are things that have to be done in order for the people of the UK to continue their lifestyles. Other experts have fought back saying that it’s these very lifestyles that everyone is working so hard to break, not to support.