On Friday, Mark visited Pelamis wave power in Leith with Ed Miliband, UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. Pelamis is an innovative company developing technology to harness energy from the waves.

In successive budgets, the UK Government has set aside funding to develop new low carbon technology like this. Pelamis has just received £4.8million from a fund established by the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and managed by the Carbon Trust. Another Edinburgh-based company, Aquamarine Power also received funding for a wave power project.

In a separate development, this January the UK Government announced a massive expansion of offshore wind energy which will include hundreds of wind turbines in the Firth of Forth. When people talk about green jobs it is exactly this kind of project that is involved, providing skilled long-term jobs in designing, building and maintaining the machinery. To read more about the plans for wind energy in the Firth of Forth, click here.

In the evening, Ed Miliband addressed a public meeting in a local church at which he took questions from a well-informed audience about recent developments in policy to tackle climate change. You can read more about the meeting in Mark’s next blog.