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Conservative Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Letwin has indicated that the UK coalition government is a step nearer to achieving a consensus on the environment, most particularly over a carbon price and renewable heat incentive.

In a speech yesterday he set out a five-year party roadmap to achieving the Conservative party goals of going green, pledging that the government would implement Cameron’s renewable heat incentive, in addition to initiating a smart grid and smart meter rollout.
‘Our incentive for renewable heat will bring forward the generation of heat from waste and other renewable sources – a crucial part of cutting carbon and maintaining energy security,’ said Letwin.
‘In the next five years, our strong, united coalition government will take the crucial steps that set us on the road to a secure, low carbon, green growth Britain.’
The Conservative arm of the coalition government has also committed to support the next generation of British green technology investment by establishing a Green Investment Bank (GIB) and is set to introduce a Green Deal scheme aimed at reducing energy demands.
However, the party is still in favour of promoting nuclear self-financing through transforming the climate change levy into a carbon price and said that the GIB will be used to directly invest in clean coal and nuclear projects.
In a speech yesterday he said that ‘Consensus has broken out. Over the course of the last five years, we’ve achieved consensus about aims on the environment in general, and carbon in particular.’
But he added that the country is ‘not as secure and we’re not as green as [it] need[s] to be’ after making ‘very little progress’ towards reducing its dependence on hydrocarbons.
‘Carbon reduction and energy security are amongst the greatest challenges facing the UK,’ said Letwin.
He also said that the newly-introduced feed-in tariff system will encourage micro power generation as well as lead to decentralisation of the UK power supply and said the party supported electric cars and plug-in hybrids.
In a prequel to his big claims, Letwin announced, ‘In May, David Cameron pledged that the coalition government would be the greenest government ever. When he said that, he didn’t mean we’re going to have the biggest targets, or the biggest aspirations. He really meant we’re going to be the greenest government ever.’