According to the Conservative Party website the Conservative Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:

With our energy supplies increasingly sourced overseas, and with urgent action needed to combat climate change, it’s time to rethink the way we supply and consume energy in Britain. We urgently need to move to a low carbon economy in order to strengthen our economy, help guarantee our energy security and protect our environment for future generations.

Britain is uniquely placed to be the world’s first low carbon economy: we have the natural resources to generate wind and wave power, a skilled workforce trained in the energy industry, a high-tech manufacturing sector and a green financial centre in the City of London.

A Conservative Government will make developing renewable and low carbon energy sources a priority. We will:

* Transform electricity networks with ‘smart grid’ and ‘smart meter’ technology that automatically matches supply and demand, allowing a huge increase in renewable power
* Provide up to £6,500 worth of home insulation improvements, enabling households to reduce their gas and electricity bills
* Create a decentralised energy revolution by introducing a system of feed-in tariffs to encourage micro-generation of electricity
* Expand offshore wind and marine power and provide government backing for a network of large-scale Marine Energy Parks

While ensuring Britain has adequate, safe and reliable access to conventional fuels, we will only permit coal-fired power stations to be built with clean carbon capture and storage technology, restricting carbon emissions to the level achieved by a modern gas power plant.

Nuclear power will be part of the energy mix if it is economically viable, but new nuclear power stations should not leave taxpayers with liabilities for their running, decommissioning or waste. Nuclear is not an alternative to developing and expanding renewable forms of energy.

REDUCING FUEL BILLS

The rising cost of energy is pushing more and more families into fuel poverty. So we will help cut people’s fuel bills by:

* Making it illegal for energy companies to charge unfair price premiums on prepayment meters, reducing bills for 5.8 million households
* Requiring every energy company to offer social tariffs (special low rates for electricity and gas) to vulnerable households
* Demanding energy companies inform customers if they are on the company’s cheapest tariff, and how much they could save if they are not
* Reforming the Post Office Card Account (POCA) to give up to 4 million people access to lower energy and water tariffs

Conservative Party Climate Change and Energy Policy :http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Energy.aspx

I would be interested to hear both positive and negative views on Conservative’s Climate Change and Energy policies in the comments below?