Fertility worldwide dropped but UK population rose by 470,000 in 2010 because, say experts, less educated had more children Highly educated young women in many rich countries have delayed having children because of the global recession, and may on average wait for a further five-to-eight years if governments slash public spending, say leading demographers. A study for the European Union by the Vienna Institute of Demography shows a steep decline in fertility rates in the US and Spain in 2009-10, and stagnation in Ireland and most European countries. However the report coincides with UK government figures that show Britain’s population rose by 470,000 in 2010, the highest annual growth rate for nearly 50 years. It rose 0.8% on the previous year and stands at 62.2m – a rise caused by natural change rather than immigration for the third consecutive year, according to the Office for National Statistics. “If this is the case, then Britain joins the very few countries who are increasing their fertility rate despite the recession,” said Tomáš Sobotka, one of the Austrian report’s authors. “It is possible this is because the educated women are choosing to delay having while the less educated are having more.” According to the report: “Highly educated women react to employment uncertainty by adopting a ‘postponement strategy’, especially if they are childless. In contrast, less-educated women often maintain or increase their fertility under economic uncertainty.” But it adds that the patterns differ for men. “Those with low education and low skills face increasing difficulty in finding a partner or in supporting their family, and often show the largest decline in first child birth rates.” Rising unemployment, failing consumer confidence, tighter credit and falling house prices have all affected the birth rates, says the study. In the year before the recession started, 26 out of 27 EU countries had rising birth rates, but by 2009, 13 countries saw their fertility rates decline and another four countries experienced stable fertility rates. The massive cuts in social spending in Greece, Britain, Ireland, Spain and elsewhere are likely to further arrest birth rates, it predicts. “This may prolong the fertility impact of the recent recession well beyond its end. It could lead to a double dip fertility decline,” said Sobotka. “A typical result of a recession in the past was [a lower birth rate for] 2-5 years. Put together with cuts in public spending and you could get [declines] of 5-8 years.” But whereas in previous recessions women have mostly postponed having children until better economic times, the present recession could have a more permanent effect on birth rates. “Women’s age at first birth has reached around 28 in most European countries and Japan,” Sobotka said. “This leaves women and couples less flexibility to postpone parenthood until a later age.” Population Recession Economics John Vidal guardian.co.uk
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US state department encouraging discussion of draft document which circulated at opposition talks, sources say The US is promoting a “roadmap” for political reforms in Syria which would transform the regime of Bashar al-Assad but leave him in place for now – despite demands for his overthrow during the country’s bloody three-month uprising. Syrian opposition sources have revealed that the US state department has been discreetly encouraging discussion of the unpublished draft document which circulated at an unprecedented opposition conference held on Monday in Damascus. The US ambassador is urging dialogue with the regime, the sources say. Assad would oversee what the roadmap calls “a secure and peaceful transition to civil democracy”. It calls for tighter control over the security forces, the disbanding of “Shabiha” gangs accused of atrocities, the legal right to peaceful demonstrations, extensive media freedoms, and the appointment of a transitional assembly. The carefully phrased 3,000-word document demands a “clear and frank apology” and accountability for organisations and individuals who “failed to accommodate legitimate protests”, and compensation for the families of victims of repression. The opposition says 1,400 people have been killed since mid-March. The government says 500 members of the security forces have died. It does not attack the president or other regime figures by name. It calls for the ruling Ba’ath party to be subject to a new law on political parties – though the party would still provide 30 of 100 members for a proposed transitional national assembly. Seventy others would be appointed by the president in consultation with opposition nominees – which will still leave Assad in a powerful position. Several of the proposed measures have already been mentioned in public by Assad, fuelling speculation he is at least partially following through on some of the document’s recommendations. The roadmap is signed by Louay Hussein and Maan Abdelsalam, leading secular intellectuals in a group called the National Action Committee. Both men met the vice-president, Farouk al-Sharaa, before Assad’s most recent speech, diplomats said. On Monday they chaired the Damascus conference, which had official permission, was attended by 150 people – and was publicly welcomed by the US. Wael Sawah, another member of the group, is an adviser to the US embassy in Damascus but did not sign the text, apparently so as not to discredit it in the eyes of Syrians suspicious of foreign meddling. Quiet US backing for the roadmap dovetails with public demands from Washington that Assad reform or step down. Robert Ford, the US ambassador, has been urging opposition figures to talk to the regime, said Radwan Ziadeh, a leading exile who insisted the strategy would not work. “They are asking Bashar to lead the transition and this is not acceptable to the protesters,” he said. “It is too late.” Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said Assad is losing legitimacy and is not indispensable because of his country’s strategic position in the Middle East. But the US has not called openly for his overthrow – in striking contrast to policy towards Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. “It would be a big mistake if the Americans tried to influence this initiative and a mistake for the opposition to let them,” warned a prominent Syrian intellectual with close links to the regime. “I would advise them to distance themselves from the US.” A US state department spokesman said: “We are encouraging genuine dialogue between the opposition and the regime but we are not promoting anything. We want to see a democratic Syria but this is in the hands of the Syrian people.” Opposition figures are deeply divided over the way ahead, though even those arguing for engagement with the regime are far from certain it will work: “The situation may be at such an impasse that it precludes opportunities for co-operation and political dialogue and the feasibility of any proposal for reconciliation,” the text warns. Worries are growing that the regime may be recovering its poise in the absence of significant defections from the military, government or business elite. Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, said: “The US approach makes sense. Sanctions are a slippery slope and they’re not going to intervene militarily in Syria. They have to explore what this regime is capable of.” Others warn Assad may be flirting with these ideas to buy time and improve his battered image. “This is a blueprint for reform in Syria that would leave the regime in place,” warned one opposition figure. “It’s the minimum to keep the west happy. The regime wants to co-opt the opposition and independent intellectuals to create an official opposition and sideline others and paint them as being in collusion with foreign enemies. How can I give legitimacy to Bashar al-Assad when there are a million people on the streets demanding he be removed?” Syria Bashar Al-Assad US foreign policy Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East United States Ian Black guardian.co.uk
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PCS leader says unions will keep up protests until reform plans are dropped as doctors back ballot on industrial action Thursday’s 24-hour walkout by teachers, lecturers and civil servants over plans to overhaul public sector pensions should serve as a “wake-up call” for the government, said the leader of the Public and Commercial Services union. Mark Serwotka warned that the unions were determined to keep protesting until ministers change those plans as he claimed the strike was the “best we have seen for 10 years”. He hailed the turnout as proof of the anger felt towards the government by public sector workers, but Downing Street insisted disruption to the public had been “minimal”. The action by four unions came on the day that doctors overwhelmingly backed a ballot on industrial action over NHS pensions reform plans. The leader of the Royal College of Nursing, representing more than 400,000 members, warned that it may end up doing the same. The threat of further and more widespread industrial action loomed after thousands took part in a huge rally in central London, with others staged in towns and cities around the country. The London rally heard union officials and teachers criticise the government, while Labour leader Ed Miliband was branded “a disgrace” for failing to support the action. But the Cabinet Office countered the claim with figures suggesting that just under 100,000 civil servants – around one in five of the workforce and less than half of the 250,000 balloted-membership – had taken part in the action. Serwotka said the protest should jolt Francis Maude, the minister for the Cabinet Office spearheading the pension reform talks on behalf of government. “Maybe this is the wake-up call he needed,” said Serwotka. “What they now need to do is get around the negotiating table and try to negotiate an agreement. They haven’t done that yet, but hopefully having seen how strongly feel today they will have a change of heart. “It’s a very, very clear signal to the government that they have been rumbled. This is not about pensions, this is about making public sector workers pay for the economic problems, and we are determined to keep going until they change direction.” The PCS leader said 85% of his members had been on strike today, that MPs had refused to cross picket lines and staff in Downing Street had taken action. Maude claimed the turnout was lower than the 2004 and 2007 strikes against Labour’s pension reforms. “”I am not at all surprised by the very low turnout for today’s action – less than half of PCS’s own members chose to take part. Very few civil servants wanted this strike at all – less than 10% of them voted for it – and they are right. “It is simply wrong for their leader to be pushing for walkouts when serious talks, set up at the request of the TUC itself, are still ongoing.” More than 11,100 schools in Britain closed or cancelled lessons, forcing parents to stay at home or make other arrangements for their children. Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “We realise that’s very disruptive for parents, and we do regret that. We had hoped to reach a settlement before the industrial action, but the government isn’t serious about talks.” Michael Gove, the education secretary, said the strikes were “disappointing and unnecessary”. Downing Street insisted that Britain’s borders and essential services had remained “open for business”, with air travel unaffected. David Cameron suffered no disruption to his working day at No 10, where fewer than five civil servants took part in the strike action, according to a Downing Street spokeswoman. “The prime minister thinks these strikes are premature,” she said. “There has been minimal impact on services.” She added: “The civil service put rigorous contingency plans in place and essential public services are up and running.” In Wales, around 40,000 public sector workers joined the strike. An estimated 1,000 Welsh schools closed, and dozens of government buildings and services were also shut. The Met police put in place to police the march estimated to have drawn a crowd at least 20,000-strong. There were picket lines outside government buildings in Whitehall as well as well as schools, tax offices, courts and jobcentres across the country. Around 350 colleges and 75 universities also closed or operated a scaled-back timetable. Miliband denounced the strikes in a speech to the Local Government Association. “These strikes are wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on but parents and the public have been let down by both sides because the government has acted in a reckless and provocative manner,” said the Labour leader. “After today’s disruption, I urge both sides to put aside the rhetoric, get round the negotiating table and stop it happening again.” Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told the London rally that his comments were a “disgrace”. “We are here because of our force of reason, not the Government’s reason of force.” Bousted, whose union has never before gone on strike, said Miliband should be ashamed of himself. “If our strike is a mistake, what has he done to oppose this devastating attack on our pensions?” Public sector pensions Public services policy Public sector cuts Public finance Protest Trade unions Civil service Schools NHS Doctors Local government Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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Home Office review of counter-terror strategy concerned at how to deal with convicted terrorists after release Thirty-six recently released terrorists are being “managed in the community” with a further 34 expected to leave prison over the next four years, according to Home Office figures. A record 123 prisoners are now serving sentences for terrorism-related offences in jails in Britain. But nearly 10 years after 9/11 the number being freed is starting to rise and Whitehall security chiefs are increasingly concerned about the lack of preparations to deal with them. The official review of the Prevent counter-terrorism strategy found that slow progress has been made turning prisoners away from terrorism. The review says there is “no proven methodology” and the bespoke programmes developed so far have “only reached a small proportion of the target prison population and have not kept pace” with the number of releases. The 36 convicted terrorists who have been released and are living in the community are managed under the multi-agency public protection arrangements used for convicted sex offenders. “We note that existing programmes and other tactical measures have also been used with those terrorist offenders who have already been released. But there remains a significant risk that prison fails to enable terrorist prisoners to re-evaluate their views,” the review concludes. The figures show 123 terrorism-related prisoners were being held on 30 December 2010 in the UK’s eight high-security prisons. They included 96 convicted under terrorism legislation including those linked to al-Qaida or groups influenced by them. A further 22 are classified as domestic extremists or separatists and five are “historic cases” whose convictions date from the 1970s to the 1990s. They include some with a track record of radicalisation and recruitment who may have targeted other prisoners. Counter-terrorism officials believe further research is needed on radicalising influences in jail and how they endure after release. Harry Fletcher of Napo, the probation union, echoed official concerns. “By 2014 virtually all convicted terrorists given determinate sentences will have been released onto parole. All are deemed to be high risk and require intensive supervision and liaison with the police,” he said. “The 27 convicted terrorists who were given life or indeterminate public protection sentences will remain in jail. Many of those released will be housed in probation hostels. Cutting probation and hostel budgets will be counterproductive.” The annual Home Office bulletin on the operation of police counter-terrorism powers shows the number of terrorism arrests is down 40%, from 209 in 2009 to 125 in 2010. There have been 1,945 terrorism arrests in Britain since 9/11. Use of section 44 stop and search powers has been abandoned after the European court of human rights ruled them illegal. There were 23,882 searches under these powers in 2010. Only one led to a terror-related arrest. This compares with 160,000 searches the year before. The justice ministry said extremist offenders could be recalled to custody if they breached their licence conditions. “It is crucial that we prevent those who have been involved in terrorism returning to these activities — that’s why we work closely with specialist organisations in both custody and the community to prepare offenders for their release.” The figures were published as the interception of communications commissioner, Sir Paul Kennedy, revealed that the police, security services and other public bodies submitted a total 552,550 requests for access to the communication data of members of the public last year. He said Such requests have risen steadily at the rate of 5% a year for the past three years, partly reflecting the growth in communications technology but also the increasing awareness of the usefulness of such personal data to intelligence officers and detectives. Kennedy also reports 27 cases last year of officers from the security services and the Serious Organised Crime Agency tapping the wrong phones because they had written down the wrong numbers or wrong dates. Terrorism policy Prisons and probation Global terrorism UK security and terrorism UK criminal justice Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …US cable news channel takes action after Mark Halperin calls US president ‘kind of a dick’ Poll: Was MSNBC right to suspend Halperin? A political journalist who said president Barack Obama was being “kind of a dick” live on air has been suspended by US cable news channel MSNBC. Mark Halperin, a political analyst and editor-at-large for Time magazine , made the remark on MSNBC’s Morning Joe programme on Thursday during a discussion about an Obama press conference the previous day. Halperin asked the show’s presenters jokingly: “Are we on the seven-second delay today? … I want to characterise how I thought the president behaved.” The presenters appeared to encourage him to speak his mind and after apparent confusion between the studio and the show’s production team in the gallery about whether a delay button was being used, Halperin said: “I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday.” This prompted a shocked reaction from the Morning Joe co-presenter Joe Scarborough , a former Republican congressman: “Oh my God … delay that! Delay that! What are you doing? I can’t believe you – I was joking!” Halperin then expanded on his comment, saying he thought the president was “posturing” over a deal with the Republicans over spending cuts and tax rises. Later in the show a sombre-looking Halperin apologised, after the show’s presenters admitted they had goaded him into saying it but did not think he would go through with it and also apologised. Shortly after the show Halperin was suspended by MSNBC. “Mark Halperin’s comments this morning were completely inappropriate and unacceptable,” the broadcaster said in a statement . “We apologise to the president, the White House and all of our viewers. We strive for a high level of discourse and comments like these have no place on our air. Therefore, Mark will be suspended indefinitely from his role as an analyst.” Halperin also issued a statement: “I completely agree with everything in MSNBC’s statement about my remark. I believe that the step they are taking in response is totally appropriate. “Again, I want to offer a heartfelt and profound apology to the president, to my MSNBC colleagues, and to the viewers. My remark was unacceptable, and I deeply regret it.” • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook . MSNBC TV news Television industry US television industry United States Barack Obama Jason Deans guardian.co.uk
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First drone strike in Somalia reported to have wounded senior al-Shabab militants The US has conducted its first drone strike on Islamist militants in Somalia, marking the expansion of the pilotless war campaign to a sixth country. The missile strike on a vehicle in the southern town of Kismayo, reported last week as a helicopter assault, wounded two senior militants with al-Shabab and several foreign fighters according to the Washington Post . Armed Predator and Reaper drones already operate in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and Libya, where they are controlled by the US military or the CIA. The CIA-run programmes are controversial. Although they provide the Obama administration with a low-risk weapon against Islamist militants, they stir intense anti-American hostility among the local population. Opposition is most vociferous in Pakistan, where the government said on Wednesday it was shutting down a big CIA drone base, and had ordered US personnel based there to leave. The closure of Shamsi airbase is unlikely to end the strikes. The CIA has moved its drones to bases across the border in Afghanistan, and some strikes have already taken place from there, according to a senior Pakistani military official. Racked by decades of civil war, Somalia has become an al-Qaida hub, after Yemen and Pakistan’s tribal belt. The US military previously targeted militants based there using helicopter gunships, special forces teams and cruise missiles fired from aircraft carriers. The US has also flown surveillance drones over Somalia – one was shot down in October 2009 – but now they are being used for assassination. The targets of the 23 June strike were reportedly close to Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula. In May, Awlaki escaped a drone strike in Yemen carried out by the Joint Special Operations Command, an elite military unit that orchestrated the Osama bin Laden raid. Now control of the Yemen strikes is reported to be passing to the CIA. The closure of Shamsi airbase is a blow to President Barack Obama efforts to flush al-Qaida from Pakistan. Shamsi, in western Balochistan province, was the launchpad for strikes against al-Qaida and Taliban militants in the tribal belt, particularly in Waziristan. Washington politicians have warmly embraced the drone strikes, which allow them to target elusive enemies in remote parts of the world with little risk to US personnel. In Pakistan, drone strikes have killed 2,500 people since 2004, according to higher estimates. Military analysts say they represent the future of airborne warfare. Ground personnel help the pilotless craft take off, but control quickly passes to remote-control pilots stationed thousands of miles away in the US. The CIA drones are controlled from a suburban facility near the spy agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, while military drones are controlled from airbases in Texas, Nevada and elsewhere. Shamsi was built by Arab sheikhs for falcon hunting trips, but has been occupied by the CIA since at least 2004, when Google Earth images showed Predator drones parked on the runway. Pakistani defence ministry officials said they were closing the base in retaliation to slowed payments from the coalition support fund – a multibillion-dollar US subsidy for Pakistani military operations. A senior US official in Islamabad said the government was engaging in “diplomacy by headlines” but Pakistan’s leaders are also responding to hostile public opinion. A recent Pew poll found that just 3% of Pakistanis favoured drone strikes. The CIA is likely to continue its Pakistan campaign from its Afghan bases. In unusually direct comments on Wednesday, Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan said the US would continue to “deliver precise and overwhelming force against al-Qaida” in the tribal areas. The widening drone campaign has elicited concerns from human rights activists about civilian casualties, and from legal experts about the consequences of an unaccountable form of warfare. Last year a senior UN official warned of the risks of a “PlayStation warfare” mentality. Somalia Pakistan US military CIA United States Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
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Great Firewall of China website shows users are unable to access any location within google.com Google’s new social network service, Google+, has apparently been blocked in China within a day of being launched. The company also halted new signups after a torrid first 24 hours in which “insane” demand to join it forced the company to close it to new members briefly. According to the site Great Firewall of China, which uses a server based in China to try to access external web locations, Google users inside China are unable to access any location within google.com, which includes the URL for Google+, at plus.google.com. Another access-checking service, Just Ping, also reports that the plus.google.com URL is inaccessible within China . The blocking by the Chinese government, using its “great firewall” – a censorship system which blocks a huge number of websites outside the Chinese borders on the basis that they contain “destabilising” content such as pornography or unsuitable views – matches that applied to other western social networks, including Facebook and Twitter . By contrast, the Guardian’s site is accessible in many parts of China.) Google’s main URL, google.com, has been blocked inside China since the company decided to withdraw from the mainland in 2010 in protest at what it saw as government-inspired hacking . According to the Great Firewall site, its Chinese version, google.cn, is also blocked while that of China-sanctioned Baidu is not. Google+ is being seen as Google’s answer to Facebook, which boasts almost 700m users – although it is effectively banned inside China, where only people who use encrypted connections to the outside world are able to join it. Vic Gundotra, one of the company’s top engineers who watched the development closely, posted on Google+ early on Thursday morning (at roughly 8.45pm on Wednesday night in Google’s Pacific timezone) that “we’ve shut down the invite mechanism for the night. Insane demand. We need to do this carefully, and in a controlled way. Thank you for all of your interest!” Invites were opened up again on Thursday afternoon, though only on a limited basis. There are no details yet on how many people have joined the service. China’s government on Friday celebrates an important anniversary, of 90 years since the founding of the Communist party of China, and it has instituted a number of crackdowns on internet use and heightened censorship. Earlier this week Google revealed that it receives a steady stream of requests for private data from developed countries — but that it had had no content removal requests from the Chinese government in the second half of 2010. However it received 90 requests from China-controlled Hong Kong for user data, an increase of 80% from the same period in 2009; it acquiesced to 53 of them, a 59% compliance rate. Google Digital media Social networking Blogging China Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media After Time’s Mark Halperin referred to the President of the United States as a “dick” Thursday, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough made it clear that he helped orchestrate the incident. Scarborough set Halperin up by asking him about yesterday’s press conference where President Barack Obama scolded Republicans for not raising the debt ceiling. “Are we on the seven-second delay?” Halperin asked. “Yeah, sure,” Scarborough said. “Come on. Take a chance.” “I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday,” Halperin announced with smile. Following the commercial break, Scarborough admitted he was complicit in the stunt. “I’m sorry. It was a joke,” he confessed. “We made the joke before the show about the seven-second delay and we were going to try it out.” “Joking aside, this is not a pro forma apology, it’s an absolute apology, heartfelt to the president and the viewers,” Halperin said. “I became part of the joke, but that’s no excuse. I made a mistake and I’m sorry and I shouldn’t have said it. As I said, I apologize to the president and to the viewers who heard me say that.” Washington Monthly ‘s Steve Benen noted that the Morning Joe crew was probably upset that Obama didn’t appear “docile and conciliatory” towards Republicans in Congress. “Halperin’s credibility as an objective observer of political events has long been dubious, at best, but this morning’s little stunt should remove all doubt,” Benen wrote. Update: MSNBC has suspended Halperin indefinitely. “Mark Halperin’s comments this morning were completely inappropriate and unacceptable,” MSNBC said in a statement. “We apologize to the president, the White House and all of our views. We strive for a high level of discourse and comments like these have no place on our air. Therefore, Mark will be suspended indefinitely from his role as an analyst.”
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Narrow vote grants government authority to make cuts and tax rises approved in principle on Wednesday Greece’s chances of avoiding a catastrophic disorderly default appeared to improve on Thursday as the Greek parliament approved the second stage of its €28bn (£25bn) austerity plan , and Germany announced that its banks will support a new bailout package. After heated debate, MPs narrowly voted in favour of an enabling bill that gives Greece’s government the authority to implement the package of deep spending cuts and hefty tax rises that was approved in principle on Wednesday. The legislation was carried by 155 votes to 136. Greece is now expected to receive €12bn in immediate aid from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank. Herman van Rompuy, president of the European Council, swiftly welcomed the result, which also eases the way towards a second bailout package, likely to be worth around €110bn. “This was the second, decisive step Greece needed to take in order to return to a sustainable path. In very difficult circumstances, it was another act of national responsibility,” he said in a joint statement with European Commission president José Manuel Barroso. The measures contained within the €28bn package include a new solidarity tax on income, cuts to public sector wages, reduced benefit payments and cuts to government spending on health and defence. In a further development, Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, said that German banks will roll over €3.2bn of Greek debt due to mature in the next three years. This would spare Greece from the burden of repaying the debt, although the precise details of the plan were not available. Schäuble said it built on the plan recently proposed by France, under which banks would roll over 50% of their maturing debt into new long-term bonds. France and Germany together hold a large proportion of total Greek debt. Shares rallied again in London and New York, adding to Wednesday’s gains. The FTSE 100 was up 64 points in afternoon trading, at 5920, and the Dow Jones gained 104 points to 12365. A growing number of economists believe that Greece will have to restructure its debts. The fear is that the process cannot be managed in a way that would avoid a new financial crisis. Ratings agency Fitch has predicted widespread panic if Greece were to lurch into default. “A disorderly Greek default would likely result in severe market volatility, pressures on sovereign and bank funding and a broader re-pricing of eurozone sovereign credit,” Fitch said. “The risk of contagion to other distressed and vulnerable eurozone sovereigns and their banking systems is material. Resolution of the current Greek crisis is therefore essential – though not sufficient – to prevent a systemic threat to the eurozone.” European debt crisis Greece European banks Europe European Union Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
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Increased use of coal for electricity generation undermines UK effort to fight global warming Britain’s electricity generators have been beefing up their use of coal and turning their back on more carbon-friendly gas, in moves that undermine government efforts to fight global warming . Statistics from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) show power providers used 8% more coal for electricity production in the first quarter of this year and 21% less gas. The “big six” energy companies, which include British Gas parent group Centrica, Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) and RWE npower, are already under fire for allegedly overcharging customers . The Decc figures also show the total amount of electricity generated by wind and other renewable sources over the 12 months of 2010 was 25,734 gigawatts – only 2.2% up on the year before. Renewable energy accounted for 3.3% of total UK energy consumption, an increase of only 0.3 percentage points over 2009, although its contribution to electricity output rose from 6.7% to 7%. There was also a worrying picture for Britain’s balance of payments, with domestic production of oil and gas from the North Sea falling heavily. Oil output was down 15.5% in the first quarter of 2011 on the same period in 2010, while imports of oil and oil products shot up fourfold, to 4m tonnes. Total indigenous production of natural gas fell in the first three months of 2011 by nearly 18% and while exports were nearly 12.5% lower, imports were down 1.5% too. The power companies have been benefiting from local coal production, however, with the small but active number of British facilities recording a 31% increase in output in the first quarter. Deep-mined coal – as opposed to surface-mined – showed an 80% increase, as coal stocks were depleted due to demand from the utilities. Power companies are meant to be trying to reduce their use of more carbon-intensive fuels but are understood to be switching away from gas because of a surge in prices. Energy industry Gas Energy Coal Gas Fossil fuels Climate change Terry Macalister guardian.co.uk
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