Peatlands are one of our greatest tools to capture carbon emissions naturally.
However, the environments they thrive in are also very windy and are suitable for wind turbines. Onshore wind is a great opportunity for the UK to become energy secure from sovereign energy sources. We need to diversify our energy source so that our bills aren’t dependent on the international fossil fuel market, but we also need to ensure that we build in the right places.
At this week’s Environmental Audit Committee meeting, we were scrutinising Natural England about the natural and environmental benefits of peatlands. I used this opportunity to ask them whether they had advised the government to create a carbon calculator for windfarms on English peatlands, like Scotland has.
A carbon calculator supports Scotland’s assessments on where onshore wind farms can be sustainably developed. This is done by comparing the carbon costs of wind farm developments with the carbon savings attributable to the wind farm.