by Shaun Chamberlin | May 26, 2008 | All Posts, Climate Change, Politics, TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas)
Today the UK Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), tasked with evaluating the Government's environmental progress, published their report into Personal Carbon Trading, finding that "personal carbon trading could be essential in helping to reduce our national carbon footprint".
They also state, in keeping with the conclusions of our own response to DEFRA's pre-feasibility study: "We regret that...the Government is indicating that it will wind down its work on personal carbon trading...Although we commend the Government for its intention to maintain engagement in the academic debate, we urge it to do more...We would like to see the Government leading and shaping debate and co-ordinating activity and research."
This report has led to a flurry of media interest.
Tim Yeo, the EAC chairman, was interviewed by the BBC news website, saying that personal carbon trading had "real potential to engage the population in the fight against climate change and to achieve significant emissions reductions in a progressive way", while "green" taxes, such as a petrol tax, cost poor people more because everyone - "billionaires and paupers" - paid the same amount.
He continued, "Under personal carbon trading, someone who perhaps doesn't have an enormous house or swimming pool, someone who doesn't take several holidays in the Caribbean every year, will actually get a cash benefit if they keep a low carbon footprint."
The EAC report was also followed up by the Today programme (audio), who interviewed George Monbiot - a firm supporter of TEQs - and the Environment Minister, Hilary Benn, who, as might have been expected, only parroted the findings of DEFRA's pre-feasibility study.
by Shaun Chamberlin | May 19, 2008 | All Posts, Climate Change, Peak Oil, Politics
As I mentioned in my earlier post, last week I met Polly Higgins, The Lazy Environmentalist. She specialises in CSP, and informed me that we may now be seeing serious political movement towards an EU-MENA supergrid bringing CSP-generated electricity to Europe from the...
by Shaun Chamberlin | May 19, 2008 | All Posts, Climate Change, Peak Oil, Politics, Reviews and recommendations, TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas)
This is just a quick post to point people towards the DEFRA pre-feasibility study into TEQs that came out earlier this month, and in particular the critical responses to it posted by the Centre for Sustainable Energy and The Lean Economy Connection (pdf) (this one written by David Fleming and myself), in which we argue that a number of important misunderstandings are contained in the study, and that DEFRA’s consequent decision to delay a full feasibility study into the TEQs concept is ill-advised.
TEQs is the only realistic and effective way I see of enabling the necessary national emissions reductions at the same time as addressing the challenges of Peak Oil, so this could hardly be more important.
by Shaun Chamberlin | May 16, 2008 | All Posts, Politics, TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas)
On Tuesday I spoke on TEQs at the House of Commons to a joint meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPO) and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change.
An audio recording of my presentation, and those of my co-speakers - Rob Hopkins of Transition Towns and Simon Snowden of Liverpool University's Oil Depletion Impact Group - can be found on the APPGOPO website, along with our slides.
My personal highlight was Simon Snowden's comment on so-called 'silver bullet' solutions to peak oil and climate change:
"Those familiar with their mythology will recall that silver bullets are used for killing werewolves. Werewolves do not exist. So silver bullets are both expensive and bloody useless!"
My presentation was very well received, and I was delighted to hear that I had created some new converts, but as is so often the case I found the informal chats around the event the most engaging aspect.
In particular I made the acquaintance of Polly Higgins, known as The Lazy Environmentalist, who informed me that the concept of an EU-MENA supergrid bringing Concentrating Solar thermal Power (CSP) to Europe from the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East is rapidly gaining political momentum among European governments.
On Monday I will post a full comment on this significant development.
by Shaun Chamberlin | Apr 30, 2008 | All Posts, Climate Change, Politics, TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas)
Vote for Ken Livingstone - the future of our world may depend on it.
Having worked with the Energy and Climate Change teams at City Hall it's clear that they're desperate for Ken to win another term, although for obvious reasons they won't say it openly. Love him or loathe him, he's one of very few politicians treating climate change with the ultimate seriousness it deserves.
Ken's target of a 60% emissions reduction for London by 2025 is only a target but it is already making a serious difference in moving the political discussion of the topic three steps forward, not least as he admits it can't be achieved without a national carbon rationing system.
And he is also pushing through a lot to make achieving his targets feasible (eg following Woking's excellent example on Combined Heat and Power). He's also heavily involved with an international coalition of City Mayors working to speed the response to the issue.
Boris seems to have nothing on climate change. Yet again he's adopting the "it might be unpopular in the short term" position, despite the fact that this issue is rapidly moving to overwhelm all others.
Sian Berry is, of course, the 'Greenest' candidate, but she is urging her supporters to give Ken their second vote, in recognition of the disaster it would be if Boris Johnson were able to destroy London's position as an international leader in responding to climate change.
I believe it's important for the whole planet that Ken wins this one, not just we Londoners.
by Shaun Chamberlin | Mar 11, 2008 | All Posts, Politics, Reviews and recommendations, TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas)
There was an interesting discussion on Newsnight last night regarding green taxation. The programme can be seen free-of-charge for the next 6 days through the BBC iPlayer The full feature is no longer available online, but is summarised below.
The three guests for the discussion were Sian Berry, Green Party London Mayoral candidate; Stephen Hale, Director of the Green Alliance; and Kenneth Clarke, former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer. TEQs (or Personal Carbon Quotas as they were termed) were not explicitly up for debate, but they were raised by Tim Yeo, Chairman of Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee, in a pre-recorded video segment, and endorsed by Sian Berry.
Ken Clarke was dismissive of "personal carbon quotas and all that" and claimed to be very confident that he was the man 'living in the real world' in this discussion. But the reality he refers to is the current political reality of Business As Usual. He doesn't seem to recognise that scientific and physical reality will ultimately trump political reality every time if push comes to shove - the real question must be whether we can reconcile the two.
Jeremy Paxman tried to argue that by supporting TEQs Sian Berry was advocating "a powerful State telling people what carbon they can use", but she rightly highlighted that TEQs would give individuals the choice between being rewarded for energy-thrift or being more profligate and effectively paying compensation to the energy thrifty by buying their surplus TEQs units. This personal freedom is actually a feature that many Conservatives - like Tim Yeo - find appealing, though clearly Ken Clarke is not one of them!
I was a little confused by Stephen Hale's position. He seemed to be saying that TEQs are too radical because we don't have enough time to spend unravelling the existing policies which TEQs would render obsolete (despite the money this would save). But then he was simultaneously arguing that what is necessary is a dramatic step-change in policy - mystifying!
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