“Sustainability, security and affordability are all challenges which the market alone cannot be guaranteed to solve,” he told an audience at Imperial College in London, before flying to Poland today to join negotiators from 190 countries at a UN Climate Change conference in Poznan.

He said that the Government needed to take a more interventionist approach in the setting of higher carbon prices to “overcome market failures” that were inhibiting the adoption of renewable energy technologies. He indicated that the Government was shifting towards a hybrid model combining dynamic markets with strategic government. 

However, there was little to indicate how he plans to bridge the gap withe the Big Six, who have criticised him from 'shooting from the hip' on calls for them to cut prices, whilst also pushing them to pour £100 billion into the UK's aging grid over the next 12 years. Furthermore, at this stage he was unable to detail anything more than a commitment to publish a roadmap, in the summer of 2009, to identify how the country might cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.