(and would-be final assassin of the climate?)
The Observer reported yesterday that Chancellor Gordon Brown is launching a new study aimed at “identifying solutions that would allow†the third runway at Heathrow to be built, in spite of air pollution worries. His recent pre-Budget Report stressed Heathrow’s “unique role in supporting economic growth across the countryâ€. The new study “reflects Brown's wider fears that the economy may suffer from years of wrangling over new ports, airports and roads.â€
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1676272,00.html
Well, having repeatedly and persistently lobbied oil-producing countries to increase their output, he may as well seek to expand UK’s aviation, road and shipping miles, so further confounding attempts to reduce emissions nationally, across EU or curb growth by developing countries.
Never mind that the very countries expected to be hardest hit by climate change are the poorest developing countries highlighted by the Make Poverty History campaign which he was keen to ride the wave of.
All from the man who last March told a conference of G8 energy and environment ministers in London that (i) banishing global poverty depended on safeguarding the world environment (ii) it was “no longer tenable†to separate environmental issues -including climate change - from management of the economy (iii) that climate change was "the most far-reaching - almost certainly the most threatening - of all the environmental challenges facing us" (iv) a particular danger lay in passing 2C warming. A man whom Margaret Beckett has said she is “always talking to†over the need for environmental measures, Margaret Beckett herself assiduous in seeking high calibre advice.
Should the man get to serve a full term after Tony Blair, with a majority government, then the scope for the UK to use its (still axial) international position to lead a tide turn on world emissions in time to avert catastrophe will surely all but vanish.
Is GW now seen as a fudge-worthy issue?
Are politicians increasingly paying lip service to emissions cuts, while shifting towards thinking it’s a war that can’t be won?
At FoE’s first Big Ask public meeting on 21 Jan, Frank Dobson MP spoke of having invented the phrase “dash for gas†and had signed the Big Ask EDM. However, he said that nothing would stop China and India from wanting to burn lots of fossil fuels. Therefore an important part of the solution was to develop more energy-efficient ways to burn fossil fuels. Then developing countries would be keen to use them.
I told him afterwards that an important earth/climate science principle was that fossil fuel discharges persist in the biosphere and therefore must be wound down to almost zero to avert catastrophe. If not, when all the coal’s been dug out in 400 years’ time [or less] there'll be a carpeting of wind turbines anyway, but all will be much hotter for tens of thousands of years. He replied that humankind wouldn’t agree to the former.
Note that the Big Ask EDM doesn’t commit anyone to voting for the Bill.
Then there’s Two Jags Prescott, who has moved from his original efforts to cut motor traffic and cheerlead Kyoto progress in 2000-01, to now trying to build masses of low-cost housing, criticized for energy-efficiency standards.
See parent comment on Gordon Brown.
The ‘Blair betrayal’ goes back to at least 2004, when the government was attacked by a Lords environmental select committee for its airport expansion plans, and attempted to water down an EU emissions policy document as leaked to Greenpeace. In Jan 2005 he told the World Economic Forum: “Political leaders... are being asked to take unacceptable falls in economic growth and living standards to tackle climate change... it would not matter how justified it was, it simply would not be agreed to."
Aviation in 2005 Pre-Budget Report
2005 Pre-Budget Report: remarks on aviation
(www.hm-treasury.gov.uk./media/FA6/22/pbr05_chapter3_269.pdf)
3.143 In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, the UK economy is increasingly dependent on air travel. The Government’s Air Transport White Paper predicted that by 2030, demand for air travel would be between two and three times its present level. Additional airport capacity to meet this rising demand will generate benefits for the wider UK economy.
3.144 Heathrow, the UK’s major hub airport, plays a unique role in supporting economic growth across the country. The Government has been undertaking extensive modelling work to understand the nature and extent of the air quality issues that affect further development at Heathrow. This work is aimed at identifying solutions that would allow construction of a third runway to take place within relevant air quality limits. As part of the White Paper Progress Review in 2006, the Government will announce whether the challenges set out in the White Paper for the expansion of Heathrow can be met.
3.145 The Government is committed to meeting the demand for additional runway capacity in the South East which will arise before expansion of Heathrow is likely to be completed. A second runway at Stansted should be delivered as soon as possible. The airport operator is expected to submit a planning application for a second runway during 2007. The Government will set out plans for the surface access requirements to support this application, and will work with the airport operator to agree an appropriate package of improvements.
NOTE: The Government’s 2003 Air Transport White Paper on aviation was criticized for the consequential rise in greenhouse gas emissions by:
(i) the Commons Environmental Audit Committee,
(ii) the Lords EU subcommittee on the environment,
(iii) the chair of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution,
(iv) the Sustainable Development Commission,
(v) many NGOs, including the Campaign to Protect Rural England and several now members of Stop Climate Chaos.
The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution 2002 special report “The Environmental Effects of Civil Aircraft in Flight†(www.rcep.org.uk/aviation.htm) noted:
- The net Radiative Forcing effect of aircraft is believed to be in the region of 3x that solely caused by the carbon dioxide emissions, compared with 1-1.5x for most other human activities;
- Incremental improvements that could be seen in existing engines and fuels are likely to be far outweighed by the growth in the sector as things stand. As regards new airframe designs with greater fuel efficiency and lower cruise altitudes, it will be some decades before such aircraft form a significant proportion of the world fleet and they would in any case only affect the impacts of long-distance flights.
- Alternative aviation fuels, most notably hydrogen, were felt to be unlikely to prove practicable and could even have the potential to be more damaging than kerosene. Any future development of a fleet of supersonic aircraft would be particularly damaging.
John Vidal not impressed by budget
John Vidal writing in G2 environment pages yesterday:
"For just a few hours last Wednesday, the broad British environmental movement toyed with the idea that Gordon Brown was transforming himself into Gordon Green. After nine years of saying the environment was important, and then doing little, the supremely confident chancellor appeared to be throwing around green money, green ideas and green initiatives...
"But even as environment groups, local authorities and a newly-committed businesses sector held their breath, it dawned that they had all mostly fallen for the oldest trick of the political game. The consensus slowly emerged that the chancellor had stroked them, told them they were important, handed out a few bones, but left them in the end with little."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,,1742012,00.html
Gordon Brown's hypocrisy: update
Last Saturday, Gordon Brown spoke on BBC Radio 4 of the 'moral duty' of developed nations to tackle climate change which will hit developing countries first and hardest:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4932988.stm
Yet only the day before, he had been calling on OPEC countries to increase their oil output although this is at near-record levels, and for increased oil refining capacity:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13129-2146415,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/economics/story/0,,1759022,00.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/04/22/cnbrow...
These articles also note that Brown is striving to open markets further and counter growing protectionist sentiment.
* Mark Lynas' front page article in The New Statesman on aviation and Gordon Brown: see www.marklynas.org, post earlier this month.
Gordon Brown's speech to UN, 20 April
Plus, the day before Gordon Brown called for increased pumping and refining by OPEC, he was at the UN announcing that "Environmental sustainability is not an option - it is a necessity", and that "This imperative applies most strongly" to "tackling" climate change.
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/newsroom_and_speeches/press/2006/press_31_...
A further quote: "We are on course not just to achieve but to go beyond - indeed nearly double - our Kyoto target for greenhouse gas emissions. But these numbers do not tell the whole story. For in the last decade our economy has grown much faster than in previous decades and faster than the rest of Europe. Yet in Britain in this period of high growth, greenhouse gas emissions have not risen."
Gordon Brown to welcome superjumbo to Heathrow
Gordon Brown is to welcome Britain's first airbus A380 'superjumbo' to Heathrow, as he opens the new pier 6 at Heathrow built to accommodate such giant planes on 18 May. Wow, quite a busy day for the climate, then!
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/tm_objectid=17080725&m...
Thom Yorke cosies up to Gordon Brown
From http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,1795948,00.html:
"Yorke, an 'ambassador' for FoE, had written to the leaders of the three major political parties, inviting them to the [May 1 Big Ask] gig. 'Well, obviously I didn't write to Tony,' the 37-year-old singer said. 'I wrote to Gordon Brown instead.'
"'Obviously' because Thom Yorke hates Tony Blair; because he thinks the PM has 'no environmental credentials'; because Yorke is viscerally opposed to the Iraq war and to current global trade practices. And because the rock star had already declined an invitation to meet the Prime Minister last September."
So Thom, how have Brown's stances been better than Blair's on these issues?
YouTube Brownwash video
A great YouTube video on Brownwash, picked up by Greenpeace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tf7hxyZCOk