The decision by the Silicon Valley-based Khosla Venture to hire Tony Blair as strategy adviser on green energy will surprise some environmental campaigners. You need only go as far back as 2003 to find the former prime minster being slammed from all sides for attempting to “greenwash” the then government’s environmental record, publishing a white paper on energy provision that many felt was full of hollow promises and light on hard targets.
Published on what the government at the time called “Green Monday”, the white paper on energy provision was met with derision from environmentalists, including the Green Party. The Greens’ principal speaker, Margaret Wright, described Blair’s white paper and the environment secretary Margaret Beckett’s annual report on sustainable development as “green spin and greenwash”.
Wright pointed out back then that the £350m set aside for renewable energies in the energy white paper was just over half the taxpayer bailout of the privatised nuclear power industry that had recently been announced.
Even the prime minister’s environmental adviser, Sir Jonathon Porritt, warned that the UK would fall “well short” of its goal of cutting carbon-dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2010 unless major policy changes were made, particularly on reducing car use.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) — which was considered Blairite at the time — warned that the energy white paper could put investment in renewable energy projects at risk, saying that by failing to commit to firm targets for renewable energy, the government had jeopardised new investment.
The IPPR research fellow Alex Evans said: “The white paper is chronically short on detail. It is frustrating that the government doesn’t have the nerve to commit to formal 2020 targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency.”
Back then, the government said it did support renewable energy, and that the white paper set out how it would spend £30m more per year in the sector.
But the Liberal Democrats’ environment spokesman, Norman Baker, said: “Tony Blair’s speech is just more warm words about greenhouse gases. Every few years the prime minister feels the need to give a speech on the environment which is followed by inaction.”
Yet Khosla Ventures, launched in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of the former technology giant Sun Microsystems, has chosen Tony Blair Associates as its part-time adviser on green energy. Khosla Ventures is an investment group that says it specialises in environment-friendly technologies, including solar, wind and — ahem — nuclear energy start-ups.
Khosla insisted that Blair will be of enormous value to his venture capital firm. “Understanding local and global politics is now important for us, techie nerds,” he said. “This is where our relationship with Tony Blair can really help us. Tony understands far better than I ever will the political and geopolitical forces, as well as organisational behaviour and social behaviour and change.”
The company said in a statement that Blair has led on climate change: “He was the first major head of government to bring climate change to the top of the international political agenda at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 summit. He is a proponent of pursuing practical solutions to tackle climate change through technology and energy efficiency.
“Tony Blair now leads the Breaking the Climate Deadlock initiative, a strategic partnership with the Climate Group, working with world leaders to build consensus on a new, comprehensive international climate policy framework.”
As for Khosla, although he is heavily into investing in renewable energy, he is clearly not wholeheartedly against nuclear power. He once said:
I suspect environmentalists, through their opposition [to] nuclear power, have caused more coal plants to be built than anybody. And those coal plants have emitted more radioactive material from the coal than any nuclear accident would have.
Jason Stamper is NS technology correspondent and editor of Computer Business Review.
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