climate policy

It's not really come as any great surprise but the European Commission's official press release on Friday confirmed that industrial emissions in the EU rose by 0.7% between 2006 and 07.

I attended a conference today presenting best practice from around the globe in engaging people to take action on climate change. It was kind of unsettling.

Over dinner last night we were discussing climate change, as usual, and the thing that stood out by the end of the evening was that we have completely failed to communicate what's going on to the general public.

I was moaning about how rubbish this week's budget was to a friend the other day and he asked well what would you have put in it?

So here's my list:

1. Change the Climate Change levy into a real carbon tax that increases with the carbon content of the fuel -raising more money from the more carbon intensive fuels;

A number of ex colleagues are now actively campaigning to stop the first new coal station being built in the UK since the 1970's. The 'Stop Kingsnorth' campaign is in many ways a classic battle. Coal stations, even shiny new ones, produce far more greenhouse gases for every unit of electricity that they generate than other power stations so logic says we simply shouldn't be building any more given what we know about the threat of climate change.

Yesterday was the third anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol coming into force and to mark the occasion an ex-colleague, Dr. Dan Barlow, contributed an article to the Scotsman newspaper.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/opinion/Let39s-mark-Kyoto-anniversary-by.3781449.jp

Anyone who has been working on climate change in the UK for any length of time will be deeply frustrated by the lack of progress we've made to date. We've had numerous impressive speeches, and our leaders have actually helped make it an issue of international concern, but, when it comes to reducing our own emissions, the UK's track record is pathetic. We've barely got started on developing renewable energy, tried and failed to tax people out of cars, gleefully expanded airports and quietly continued burning vast quantitites of coal in our power stations.

This was my first week back in the UK after a two week holiday in Mali. A first visit to West Africa which I decided to approach `blind´ without reading any guidebooks or listening to any Malian music, even though the Festivale au Desert was ostensibly the reason for the trip. It proved to be a fascinating and beautiful country and the music, when we eventually got to hear it, was mesmerising and uplifting and Tinariwen are seldom off the stereo these days.