Just listening to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 which has a piece on geoengineering to tackle climate change, particularly that there is a report being produced into different technologies practicality. Now, if these technologies can work, then fantastic; go ahead and implement some of them.
The problem is, I don’t have enough faith in human nature. If people see that there is this wonder-technology which can pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, then why on earth are they going to be bothered to reduce emissions of it in the first place? As ever, the challenge of communicating the need for an array of solutions will probably be one of the harder things to do.
“Fix both!” is what I found myself yelling at the radio this morning, and it certainly was a cheerful piece for an environmentalist to wake up to: the One Planet programme on the BBC World Service had a piece on the economy vs. the environment, complete with vox pops from the streets of Detroit and Monrovia showing an unsurprising preference for more jobs, and the news that India had announced that it would be focussing on economic growth instead of committing to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
I got into the green movement through a campaign on poverty in the developing world, so it always baffles me when people see poverty and the environment as mutually exclusive policy areas. The Green New Deal—our version, the UN’s version, or Obama’s version; take your pick—is a great example of how ideas straight from the green movement can provide practical solutions to complex inter-linked policy areas (by the way, can you tell I’ve just done a degree in politics?). But what chance is there of the Indian government realising that?
EurActiv is carrying a story today about plans from the IATA to achieve what it calls “carbon neutral growth” by 2020. Now I’m not one to draw the line at co-operating with industries in enacting measures to tackle climate change, and I also don’t think that we can do without the aviation industry (though its present form leaves much to be desired), but this ‘commitment’ from the IATA seems to be missing the point just a tiny bit. Even if all aircraft were to use 100% biofuels, it would not be possible to attain sustainable growth. Certainly the problem of burning up finite resources would be largely removed, but biofuels have to be produced from something, whether it be sugar beet or some other crop. It seems so blindingly obvious that the more biofuels you need, the more of these crops will need to be produced: the danger of vast monocultures of a small set of crops being established to feed the demand for aviation fuels—not to mention all the other things which biofuels are being hailed as the saviour of—is significant here.
Also, can anyone decipher the following quote from the IATA’s press release? I’m sure it means something, but what that might be is escaping me just now.
“Airlines should get carbon credits for every cent we pay, whether in taxes, charges or ETS payments. And we should pay only once, not several times” said Bisignani.
If there were an award for “Most Stupid Politician in the UK”, I think Sammy Wilson would win it after his remarks today. He’d certainly also be nominated if there were a “Worst Environment Minister in Europe” award.
He has called the “Act on CO2” campaign run throughout the rest of the UK an “insidious propaganda campaign”, and refused to allow it to run in NI, including apparently refusing to allow UK-wide quangos to run the campaign. His basis for this refusal is that he doesn’t “believe” in human created climate change.
He is quite an astonishingly ridiculous character. I blogged about him last September, and featured this quote:
“The tactic used by the “green gang” is to label anyone who dares disagree with their view of climate change as some kind of nutcase who denies scientific fact”
Well I’m happy to be part of the “green gang”, and I hope Ed Miliband (Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change), Richard Lochhead (Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment) and Jane Davidson (Welsh Minister for Environment) can come and join the gang by denouncing Wilson’s statement.
I’ve neglected this blog for far too long, and it’s time to restart regular blogging. So my first topic is one which I followed for a while last year: the Energy and Climate Package. Actually, it isn’t specifically about that, rather it’s about what one of the outcomes of that was meant to be.
The Commission wanted to achieve a moral high-ground with the Package. Essentially, it should have poured icy cold water on the argument that the advanced portions of the developing world shouldn’t have to act on climate change in any strenuous way, as they didn’t make the problem, and the developed world has benefited hugely from emissions of greenhouse gases. Aside from the fact that this argument for non-action can be negated by matters of self-interest for the developing world, it was a fairly good idea of the Commission to try to lead the way.
Unfortunately (or some may say, fortunately), the EU doesn’t just do what the Commission wants. MEPs and national ministers have their say too, and the Package was watered down at every stage, until a very weak piece of legislation was spat out the other end. You could say that the institutions break the legislation down like grass in a cow’s stomach. Take that metaphor where you will.
Anyway, it seems that the Commission hasn’t realised that its proposals were digested in that way, as it has apparently just urged developing nations to cut their emissions, regardless of the EU’s rather limited actions, beholden as it is to commercial interests.
Certainly, the approach to tackling climate change must be global in scale, and stronger nations must help weaker nations, but though this may be initially suggested by the Commission’s media release, it does also go on to say that:
“Up to 2020 the bulk of actions in these countries will have low costs—or even benefits—and should be financed domestically.”
To me this does not seem to be a particularly constructive way of helping very poor states to make the necessary adaptations to their economies and infrastructure that will be needed. After the diluting of the Energy & Climate Package, it seems that the EU is in a bit of a muddle over what to do. A generally pro-action Commission (though clearly not a dream Green Commission) seems held back by the more reluctant views of member states and citizens. I think this is something I’m certainly going to come back to pretty soon.
It has to be welcome — to some limited degree at least — that the PM has taken some of the principles of the Green New Deal into his plans for spending his way out of recession, but I think he’s compromised too much.
The ‘Green’ Green New Deal as proposed by the New Economic Foundation calls for a “carbon-army” of people employed to construct the new infrastructure that is needed to convert from fossil-fuel based power generation to renewables. Brown’s new deal is too broad. It only tags investment in measures against climate change on as a part of an overall wider plan. Even within this limited part of the proposal, it doesn’t exactly look to do very much. Investment in environmental technologies includes investment in nuclear power, which I’m guessing will gobble up a fair chunk of the funding. A proper green new deal would give Britain the infrastructure needed to ditch fossil fuels, put the country in a better state to weather the rest of the century, and create far more than just 100,000 jobs. I look forward to hearing more details of this policy, to see if there is actually any hope for it to achieve its ambitions. Somehow I doubt it though.
A recently published Eurobarometer poll on animal cloning reveals that 61% of respondents thought such cloning was morally wrong. When figures from individual states are viewed, Austrians were most likely to think animal cloning was morally wrong, and us British were the least likely.
I’m not entirely sure what to make of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe’s flash-based “The Changers” game, but is seems to be promoting action against climate change, so, if you can figure it out, it may be worth a look.
