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UK environmental policy: Government greenwashing?
Lord Turner, chair of CCC; photo by Overseas Development Institute (source: Flickr Creative Commons)
Ready for some negative news?
The 8.6% fall in UK greenhouse gas emissions last year was down to the economic slump rather than government initiatives.
According to an article in the Guardian, the government needs to take significant action over the next year in order to reach legally binding emissions targets (34% on 1990 levels by 2020). The head of the Committee on Climate Change says these actions must come in the form of improving the energy market, making homes more energy efficient, reducing emissions from farming and encouraging electric vehicle development. He also stressed the need to cut air travel.
Lord Turner, chair of the committee, said the recession has created the illusion that the UK is tackling climate change, but substantial declines in emissions are almost entirely the result of lower economic activity in the last year.
–Guardian
Oops!
Also in the bad news department, the use of renewable energy to meet power needs actually fell by 7.5% last year in the UK. A dry winter and low wind speed are officially to blame, but cheap foreign gas prices may have also played a part (lousy free market).
Frustration also comes from what some activists see as too much talk and not enough action to back it up – aka ‘greenwashing’
From another piece in the Guardian:
The coalition must keep its promise to be the greenest government ever by making it easier for renewable energy projects to take off – and creating a well-funded green investment bank focused on making Britain a world leader in a developing a low-carbon economy.
–Andy Atkins, executive director, Friends of the Earth
Granted, there is a new government in power in the UK, but if same pace is maintained as under Labour and all the pledges aren’t backed up by concrete policy, it’s all a bit of a greenwash.
Seems to me that a radical change in priorities is in order. Green tech and renewable energy cannot be seen as luxuries or things to pursue only when there are extra funds. The UK should be a leader in actions as well as rhetoric. The irony is that the renewable energy market gets hit by bad economic times, yet growth also raises emissions. So what’s actually greener, to tighten our belts and suffer economically or to have a booming economy where renewables play a growing role? So far it’s been the former, but that’s maybe because renewable energy is still not taken seriously enough and that markets are still purely growth-based and essentially unsustainable. Or perhaps renewbles and green tech could be considered more essential and move forward no matter what the relative economic state.
Maybe it’s time to get off the ‘growth is good’ mantra and start keeping it real.
Graham Land
Additional resources:
Telegraph – UK must take radical action to meet climate change targets, watchdog warns
BBC News – Advisors urge new UK climate policies
Tags: climate change, economic, emissions, energy, government, Green, greenwashing, Lord Turner, policy, renewable, UK
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I hope so too, but I do not trust the market to solve these problems, just to take advantage of any means to make money. Maybe some progress will come out of the coalition, but when the party that has the majority of power is full of climate ‘skeptics’ and old school Torries I don’t think having a centrist PM and a deputy PM who seems to be on the Liberal/Right of his own party will be enough. Still, we can hope
Hardly shocking news that the CO2 fell because of the recession. 13 years of Labour promises of growth in renewables and really only achieved CO2 reductions because of deindustrialisation and recession. The UK has had enough rhetoric, andcountries such as Denmark and Germany already have the green jobs and significant amounts of clean energy. Hopefully the Liberals will keep pressure on the Conservatives and finally we will get a government that does not just talk.