I am delighted to read that Brighton and Hove City Council and the South East England Development Agency have pledged to support the construction of wind turbines to provide genuinely renewable power for our city.

Wind power has an important role to play as part of a range of renewable technologies and energy efficiency and conservation measures.

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, and the fact that the City's Conservative administration decided to pull the planning application for wind turbines to be built on King's House doesn't give genuine supporters of renewable energy much cause for hope.

The council maintains it will look at individual planning applications on their merits - as is right, of course, but if they reject or postpone every application that comes along, the 750 proposed turbines will end up as little more than hot air.

We need the council and the Government to think outside the box and recognise that we face a global climate emergency unless we take urgent steps to wean ourselves off our addiction to oil.

That means making a commitment to actually building renewable energy sources rather than just talking about them. The proposed turbines on the council's King's House building would have been a powerful symbolic gesture that the council takes renewable energy seriously.

  • Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for South East England and prospective parliamentary candidate for Brighton Pavilion