Now is the moment for us to choose a green, renewable future, where Britain relies on its immense natural resources, instead of sticking with old technologies we know are destroying our planet and potentially our way of life.

This will be an enormous challenge, but one I know the British people can live up to. We just need vision and leadership to make it happen.
We need the kind of vision, application and political will that succeeded in putting man on the Moon. We need an "Apollo Project"
for British energy independence.

Historically, the UK has been dependent on energy imports. The discovery and extraction of North Sea oil and gas changed this temporarily during the 1980s and 1990s, but since 2004 we've switched back to relying on imports for our energy needs. And it's getting worse: a fifth of our energy already comes from abroad, and with the Government's plans for a new generation of dirty coal-fired power stations, we'll be forced to import more.

This is bad economics, and bad politics. The cost of these fossil fuels is rising; we see that every day in rising home energy bills and petrol prices. Reliance on imported energy from places like Russia and the Middle East also distorts our foreign policy, a fact that's been brought home to all of us by the Georgian crisis. Britain's diplomatic and negotiating position is weakened by our need for fuel from several unpalatable or unstable regimes.

Nuclear is not the answer. It's not environmentally friendly, and the cost of dealing with waste is so astronomical that it is not economic either, requiring expensive subsidy or guarantees from government. Plus, even if we started planning today, it would be years before nuclear power stations came on line, so they won't tackle our immediate energy needs.

The truth is Britain has no credible energy policy. Labour has dithered and flip-flopped for over a decade. Instead of an energy policy, we have a potential economic, environmental and national security disaster waiting to happen. That's got to change.

Britain needs to set itself an ambitious goal: to become energy independent within the EU by 2050 as part of a push for a zero-carbon Britain. This is the only route to economic stability and the only
way to protect our planet for future generations.

Using all the technologies available, and in development, will be vital. That means carbon capture and storage, siphoning off carbon dioxide as it's produced and storing it so it doesn't get into the atmosphere. It means combined heat and power, where the excess heat generated by created electricity is used to heat homes or businesses. And it means using the whole raft of renewable energy sources, from wind to wave, biomass to solar.

This might sound like an expensive investment. But the truth is it's an economic opportunity: an opportunity for Britain to lead the world in renewable technologies, creating jobs and revitalising industrial capacity. Even the Government's measly existing plans for renewables would create about 160,000 jobs, so just imagine how many jobs we could find if we took the big leap to a truly green economy.

So how do we do it? First, we've got to slash the amount of energy we use. We need a sustained drive to increase energy efficiency and end fuel poverty so everyone can keep warm and keep the lights on without costing the planet. We'd push this forward through the energy companies, asking them to fund a major programme to insulate every British home over 10 years and install "smart meters" that help families use less.

They've been granted a £9bn windfall subsidy through the European Emissions Trading Scheme, so they can afford to pay for this themselves. With proper insulation, each of us could save £200 or more
on our bills, and we'd reduce household carbon emissions by
20 per cent, too.

Reducing energy use is important, but we also need to make sure the energy we do use is renewable. Liberal Democrats would begin with the creation of a "Renewables Delivery Authority", modelled on the successful Olympics Delivery Authority, to draw up and implement the detailed plans we need. We have an EU obligation to generate 15 per cent of our total energy from renewables by 2020, but I want to aim higher, investing now to ensure that more than 30 per cent of Britain's electricity is provided from renewable sources by 2020.

A massive expansion of renewable projects in the North Sea and elsewhere would help develop mature markets for a range of renewable technologies and provide investors with more long-term stability. The introduction of "feed-in tariffs" – where people who generate renewable energy can sell it into the national grid at a guaranteed price – would help, too.

Unless we aim high, we will have to fall back on old technologies. We'll have missed the opportunity to become world leaders in a growth industry, contributed to the worsening effects of climate change, and condemned ourselves to continued reliance on unstable regimes and their fuel sources. This is a tremendous opportunity for a different future: a stable, prosperous and green future. We need to seize it.


Nick Clegg is the Sheffield Hallam MP and leader of the Liberal Democrats.