The UK is harking back to the energy system of the last century

While the Paris climate summit is set to launch the world towards renewable energy, UK energy secretary Amber Rudd is backing nuclear power and gas

The UK's new energy policy, sketched out on Wednesday by Amber Rudd, will keep the lights on. That's the good news. But it makes meeting the UK's carbon emissions targets harder and will cost energy bill payers more.

This is the result of the many contradictions it contains. Energy bills must be "as low as possible", Rudd says, but the government is turning its back on the cheapest clean options: energy efficiency, onshore wind and solar power. Coal must be phased out but only to be replaced by gas, another fossil fuel which itself must be largely phased out within 15 years. All energy technologies must compete in a market - unless it is nuclear power.