The Greens have scrupulously analysed the Conservatives' green paper number 8 on de-carbonising Britain, which was published in January and which forms the basis of current thinking at the top of the Conservative Party, if not necessarily amongst Tory MPs and councillors.
A communique from the Green Party said: "A few of the Tories' new ideas closely mirror pre-existing Green Party policies - except that despite all experience, the Tories have preserved their somewhat naive faith in the market - while some of their ideas are frankly stupid, like building more nuclear power stations.
"Nuclear power is not and never will be green. It can't deliver CO2 reductions as fast as we need them. It does nothing to help the green recovery we urgently need to tackle the recession. Nuclear sustains far fewer jobs per megawatt than renewables, so it will create too few jobs far too late."
The communique continued:
"But the more closely you examine the Tory green paper, the more flaws and shortcomings appear."
"They wholeheartedly back so-called 'clean coal,' even while they admit the technology isn't yet proven and might not even be economical. But anyway, unlike renewables, carbon capture isn't even zero-carbon, and it can't deliver emissions reductions fast enough, because it doesn't yet work. Also it will create far fewer jobs per megawatt than renewables."
"They want high-speed rail links to replace some internal flights, but they won't end the massive tax-breaks that make flying artificially cheap and attractive to consumers."
"They misunderstand the issue of biofuels."
"They speak warmly of offshore wind energy, but references to onshore wind in their green paper are few and potentially hostile."
