In Displacement Activity I wrote about new guidance which appeared on the government website in late January this year for the benefit of companies seeking to develop offshore wind farms. It was followed by a ministerial statement that:

Today I am announcing an action that my Department will take to help accelerate and de-risk the consent of offshore wind projects while continuing to protect the marine environment.

My conclusion at the time was: “Clearly, the development is the priority, and environmental compensation is a nuisance that can be worked out later.”

Given that the Guardian seems to have the ear of Labour government ministers and vice versa, it seems that my scepticism about the government’s intentions may have been justified, at least if an article that appeared on the Guardian website today is anything to judge by. Its heading says it all really: “Offshore windfarm projects may be exempted from new UK nature rules”. And why might that be? Why, special pleading from the renewables industry and a government desperate to achieve an unachievable policy, of course. Or, as the sub-heading to the Guardian piece puts it: “Firms say added costs would mean they are unable to install enough turbines to meet green energy goals”.

As the Guardian tells us, it’s all going rather badly just now for the embattled Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero:

The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, is trying to find ways to reduce the cost of building offshore wind projects to avoid an increase in energy bills, according to sources in his department. Inflation and labour and materials costs are making it expensive to build the projects, while the grid upgrade required to carry the extra electricity is also adding to costs.

This is particularly problematic, given that under new planning rules expected to be introduced in May next year, all Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects will be expected to “enhance nature”:

Under the biodiversity net gain (BNG) requirement, they will be required to create 10% more nature than was there before the project was started, whether by planting trees or wildflower meadows or creating wetlands. The additions will not necessarily have to be in the same location as the development.

It sounds great, though the sceptic in me fears that this requirement will be more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Apparently the new rules were supposed to have been announced last week, but the announcement was delayed:

…after a last-minute loophole was added for offshore windfarms to make them exempt from BNG rules, sources say. The turbines will not have to compensate for habitat destroyed in the shallow intertidal waters in which they are built, which include prime feeding spots for seabirds such as puffins, where the fish they feed on spawn.

As I suspected would be the case:

A government spokesperson said wind projects would pay into a marine recovery fund to offset some of the damage they cause to the natural environment. [My emphasis].

And so offshore wind farm developers can damage the natural environment with impunity. All they have to do is pay some money (which will no doubt be a fraction of the profits they expect to make) into a government fund, and who cares how the government chooses to spend it? They’ll be off the hook for the sort of bizarre efforts I described in Screwing the Tern.

In a submission to the consultation, the industry group RenewableUK said: “It is essential that mandatory BNG does not create an imbalance of priorities, discouraging renewable project developments that contribute to climate change mitigation” and that there were fears it could add “disproportionate costs or legislative challenges to renewable energy infrastructure developments”.

Heavens above, that would never do – that sort of thing has to be reserved for the oil and gas companies. The Guardian reminds us that:

Windfarms can harm seabirds and marine mammals in the shallow waters and intertidal areas where they are located. The Berwick Bank windfarm in Scotland, for example, is predicted to kill 2,808 guillemots, 814 kittiwakes, 260 gannets, 154 razorbills and 65 puffins in its first year of operation, according to an analysis by the Scottish government.

But who cares? After all:

Government sources say pushing up the cost of electricity by applying concepts such as BNG will cause more gas to be burned, and that the biggest threat to biodiversity globally is climate change.

In all seriousness, I worry that the people in charge of policy are deeply dangerous. Their policies are pushing up the cost of electricity, and damaging biodiversity in the here and now. To claim that this is acceptable because it will supposedly help to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions (which continue to increase inexorably as the rest of the world ignores the UK’s “lead”) flies in the face of all the evidence which is freely available for all to see. On top of all that, it seems likely that they will miss their targets anyway. It’s a farce of monumental proportions.