Labour
Blair, Brown & Labour party
Written on 30-Apr-2009 by
panokroko Environmental Parliament Demonstration
Climate Change might be the greatest threat to civilised human life on earth but we can be sure that Gordon Brown isn't going to do anything about it on his watch. Yes, he'll go to all the international conferences and make the right speeches. He'll probably encourage his chancellor to put an extra £25 on Vehicle Excise Duty for the largest vehicles and an extra fiver on APD but it is very much business as usual, nothing is going to happen that will upset anybody. Michael O'Leary won't be loosing any sleep. Look at his record. Brown has been chancellor for ten years.
A CALL ON SIR NICHOLAS STERN FOR DISCIPLINE ON
CONTRACTION AND CONVERGENCE
To avoid dangerous rates of climate change, we have to solve the problem
faster than we create it. Though this is a simple and obvious test, it
is a great challenge as rates of change towards an increasingly adverse
climate are already now well established.
Like others before it, Sir Nicholas Stern's recent report recognises the
challenge but does not rise to it. Rising to it means showing that we
are collectively organising to do enough soon enough globally to avoid
dangerous rates of climate change. In other words success requires that
In the interview below, Blair is still saying that variations in the weather are the reason for not having annual CO2 targets. Annoyingly, interviewers seem to forget to suggest that the government statisticians would be quite able to adjust for this. He's also talking about carbon footprinting and budgeting; lobbying by David Miliband seems to be working.
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1993581.ece
Polly Toynbee argues Gordon Brown should not keep his ideas in the bottom drawer until he walks into No 10 (Comment, June 6). But when it comes to the green agenda, the drawer may be empty. The Environmental Audit Committee said earlier in the year that it was mystified by Treasury timidity over green taxes.
The top rate tax on gas-guzzling cars, the equivalent of a cappuccino a month, introduced at the last budget was widely condemned. Someone needs to knock heads together in the Treasury and remove what the EAC politely describe as "a degree of institutional inertia".
More at the workshop at 12 o'clock on Saturday.
David Miliband, the new Secretary of State for the environment, interviewed in today's Observer:
- argues for emissions trading to cover aviation, stating "'If we have more flights, we have got to have less of something else";
- says that the premiership after Blair will be "Gordon's job". He further remarks that the Labour party is 'completely unified' about its future and 'completely unified in who the next leader of the party's going to be'.
The "State of London" Debate today in Westminster really showed to me that there is now a definite PARALLEL GOVERNMENT going on in London. Ken Livingstone and his crew are setting themselves up as THE Climate AUTHORITY in London...
