I am honoured to be confirmed today as the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee. I look forward to meeting with the EFRA committee team in the coming days and indeed with the different organisations and experts with a role to play in this sector as we begin our work.
Whether on fishing, farming, water quality or pollution, there is no shortage of issues for the committee to tackle in the coming months. It will take some time for the remaining members of the committee to be appointed and our “to do” list is going to be lengthy, but I intend for us to hit the ground running.
Jamie Stone will head the Petitions Committee which holds debates on those Parliament e-petitions which get more than 100,000 signatures.
May I begin by welcoming the Prime Minister to his first questions as Prime Minister? I associate myself with his remarks about the soldier in Kent, and, of course, send my wishes to the British Olympians.
At Combe in my constituency, Thames Water pumped sewage into the River Evenlode for over 2,600 hours last year. Thames Water was allowed by Ofwat to withdraw £7 billion in dividends, yet now wants to jack up my constituents’ bills. I welcome the water Bill in the King’s Speech, but does the Prime Minister agree with my constituents and me that the system is broken, and will he now commit to scrapping Ofwat and replacing it with a tougher regulator that will finally put people and planet ahead of water company profits?
The Prime Minister replied:
I welcome the hon. Member to his place and thank him for raising this important issue in relation to water. Customers should not pay the price for mismanagement by water companies. We have already announced immediate steps to put water companies under a tougher regime. The Minister responsible for water, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), will meet the bosses of failing companies to hold them to account for their performance. After 14 years of failure with our rivers and beaches, it falls to this Government of service to fix the mess of that failure.
Next up was Ed Davey, who now gets two questions a week. Unsurprisingly, he asked about carers and social care and was praised for his video about caring for his son John by the PM. Keir Starmer was also not above a little light teasing –
'I'm glad he's in a suit today – I'm more used to seeing him in a wetsuit'@Keir_Starmer jokes as Lib Dem leader @EdwardJDavey asks his first question at PMQs after the Lib Dems became the third largest party pic.twitter.com/12AqiS96mg
It’s important to remind people that we were Britain’s original Green Party. We were into environmentalism in the 1920s when the Liberal Party’s Yellow Book proposed setting up national parks. The party’s manifesto at the February 1974 general election was one of the greenest ever, and the Liberals had policies in the 1979 manifesto decrying the measurement of economic growth in terms of GDP.
It’s also important to remember that being the first doesn’t mean we remain the authority on political representation of environmentalism. Far from it. In a YouGov opinion poll five months ago that asked “Which political party do you think would be best to handle the environment and climate change?”, the Lib Dems came fourth. The Greens were top with 25%, Labour second with 15%, the Conservatives third on 12%, and we polled just 4% (others 2%, don’t know 26%, none 17%). Yet the party’s commitment to the environment is integral to Liberalism – Liberals regard the environment as part of the common good, so we condemn any entity that harmfully exploits the natural environment.
The problem, therefore, is the messaging: how do we Lib Dems get voters to see that we are a fundamentally green party? This formed the basis of the discussion on the second Green Book podcast, published by the people behind The Green Book that appeared in 2013. Hosted by the next MP for Eastbourne – sorry, got ahead of myself there – by the Lib Dem PPC for Eastbourne Josh Babarinde, it featured discussion among the veteran environmental activist Tom Burke (now of the E3G think tank), James Murray, the founding editor of Business Green, and Chris Willmore, a former sustainability professor who’s now the Lib Dem cabinet member for planning and regeneration at South Gloucestershire council.
The discussion is well worth a listen, because there were different approaches to the central issue of how to make the Lib Dems distinctive on green issues. It covered several aspects of the environmental debate, including the risk of voter backlash, and that old chestnut of how you find the balance between, on the one hand, letting the state set the price signals and then leaving it to individuals and businesses to be the change, and, on the other, allowing the state a bigger role in order to green our way of life via a ‘just transition’.
This year saw an interesting coincidence of events – the Earthshot prize on the 2nd December and the UN Day for disabled people on the 3rd. As a disabled person who cares deeply about climate change these two events happening the day after each other caught my attention.
It has been my experience that often disabled people are left out of discussions around climate change. When discussion around banning plastic straws was happening I saw a lot of disabled people trying to explain that they needed plastic straws to reliably access liquids and explaining why for many of them non-plastic alternatives simply weren’t viable in all circumstances. Rather than listening to us and trying to work with us to find compromises that maintained disabled people’s dignity and independence with minimising plastic waste there were many non-disabled people who at best accused us of lying and at worst seemed to suggest that our lives were worth less than reducing plastic waste.
Unfortunately Truss hasn’t yet U-turned on the Tories’ post-Boris backsliding on climate change. Kwarteng has left the treasury, but we still have Rees Mogg in charge of BEIS, a secretary for international trade who thinks our net zero commitment is an arbitrary form of unilateral economic disarmament, and a governing party with increasing links with the fossil fuel lobby – including the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
This is frightening – and we need to dial up our focus on the climate emergency.
But a lot has happened since 2019! While the fundamental environmental challenge remains, the economic and political context is different. The wholesale price of gas has increased by 5-10x, and, unless the Ukraine war ends, this is likely to continue until at least 2025. Circumstance and government incompetence has made us all poorer. And after Brexit and the shambles on the economy, attacking net zero may be the Tories’ next trick.
In that context here are some thoughts to amplify, update, and build on our 2019 work:
Support for insulation and energy efficiency. The costs of having a poorly insulated home have just sky rocketed. If the state is going to protect people from this (as I believe it should) then reducing how much energy people use is better investment of public money than subsidising the cost of the energy.
Stamp Duty; there should be no stamp duty on houses EPC B and above. If someone buys a house and gets it to EPC B within 12 months they should be able to reclaim the stamp duty. Stamp duty is a bad and unpopular way of taxing property anyway and needs replacing long term. This will phase it out in a way which provides a substantial incentive to increase energy efficiency.
Ecocide, unlike Geocide, has yet to be embedded in international law.
Ecocide, as envisaged, would perhaps be reserved for extreme forms of our everyday Planet Abuse and directed at corporates and government leaders whose policies wreak so much damage. Even so, the chances of such condemnation becoming law are minimal – and the chances of it acting as any deterrent, even less. Like so much else in the hot air of climate debating circles, the notion of Ecocide is as purely symbolic as national flag waving or political greenwashing.
On the other hand, everyday Planet Abuse is more easily understood by individual citizens and communities. For sure, there are challenges in tracking useful metrics: many places and people will see different priorities, and we are still a very long way from the general taboos that progressive societies try to muster for, say, Domestic or Racial Abuse.
Liberal Democrat agricultural spokesperson Tim Farron explains why his party is launching a campaign to Back British Farmers.
British farmers have been let down by the Conservatives. They’ve been promised that British standards will not be undermined, yet this hasn’t been guaranteed in law.
They’ve been promised that levels of funding will be maintained, yet the transition will see huge amounts of income lost.
And the Government is still expecting our farmers to be the stewards of our landscape, and work with us to cut emissions and help maintain and improve our natural environment – but if they’re not careful there won’t be any farmers left.
Family farmers are the backbone of our countryside, and that’s why the Liberal Democrats are launching a campaign to ‘Back British Farmers.’
Protect
Alongside launching this campaign, I am introducing a Ten Minute Rule Bill in Parliament to create a new environmental and agricultural regulator, to better protect our farmers and our natural environment.
Welsh Liberal Democrats have announced plans to make every town in Wales a Tree Town. This would see every council preparing a long term Tree and Woodland Strategy to deliver and sustain a minimum of 20% tree cover in urban areas and 30% tree cover for all new developments.
“We are not a rejoin party” was one of the first things Ed Davey said in his New Year interview with Andrew Marr. The starkness of that statement is bound to disappoint some Liberal Democrat members and activists who are committed to this country ultimately being part of the EU again. Party strategists are adamant that now is not the time to have that argument and that we need to re-establish our credibility after the 2019 election. Perhaps being proven right will take care of some of that issue. We just need to make sure that we can be better at benefitting from being right than we have been all the other times when we have called a major issue correctly – think Iraq and the 2008 economic crisis.
It’s also not what our policy, passed at Conference in September, says:
Conference resolves to support a longer term objective of UK membership of the EU.
I would have preferred to see a very quick addition to Ed’s line that we didn’t support Brexit for all the reasons we can see it going wrong before he emphasises the need for the closest possible relationship with the EU. There is nothing wrong with saying that while rejoin isn’t on the table now, we think we’ll get to a place where it will be a viable option. There is nothing wrong with keeping that hope alive.
However, he was very strong on one issue that differentiates us from the Labour Party. Keir Starmer is not going to fight for freedom of movement of people. The Liberal Democrats will. Ed said that taking away the freedom to live, work and raise families across the EU is illiberal. The issue is one that impacts on so many families in this country and should increase our support.
One of the sadnesses of ending freedom of movement is how it's illiberal it is – taking away that freedom for all British people, including our young people.
As Leader of the Liberal Democrats I will fight the Government on free movement within the EU. #Marrpic.twitter.com/vXxHrqRFal
That’s a major point of difference with Labour and should attract young people.
The conversation then turned to students. Ed said that the Government had let down schools, universities and students. He called Gavin Williamson the worst education secretary in living memory, who had mismanaged the crisis for everyone in the education sector. He argued that students should be refunded some of their fees and the Government, not the universities should pay for this.
The Government have let students and they've let down schools.
Gavin Williamson is the worst Education Secretary in living memory – he must go, and the Government must step up for our young people and teachers. #Marrpic.twitter.com/N06Hx9iNc8
Ed Davey was interviewed recently for a podcast published by the Green Alliance.
Shaun Spiers, executive director at Green Alliance, asks him about the historical commitment of the Liberal Democrats to environmental policies. Ed talks about his achievements in the Coalition, and the rather tepid support from the Conservatives since then for green issues. He also makes the case for regulation, and the opportunity offered post-pandemic to rebuild our economy on greener lines.
At one point Ed reveals that, after the Coalition, George Osborne took legal advice about cancelling the 15 year contracts set up under the Contracts for Difference scheme, which supported various green initiatives. Osborne was told that he could not unpick them because they were private law contracts – which is exactly what Ed has planned in order to protect them from future Government interference.
Here we go again! Boris Johnson announces a ‘world-beating’ programme to make Britain the environmental envy of the world. The usual suspects line up to say it’s too little too late, and the whole thing blows over in a couple of days, at least as a news story. But dig a little deeper and it’s not hard to identify what needs to happen to make Boris’s bluster into a plan that can really make a difference.
Let’s focus on the headline announcement: the intention to withdraw all new petrol and diesel cars from sale in the UK from 2030. Yes, numerically that puts us ahead of every country except Norway (which was first out of the blocks on massive investment in electric vehicles) so it sounds good, but on its own it’s meaningless. We’re back into that territory we were in at the election where all parties took part in auctions to see who could say they’d get Britain to net zero carbon emissions earliest – the dates garnered all the media attention, with little heed paid to whether the policies that underpinned them would actually deliver.
So it is with ending new internal combustion engines by 2030. The aspiration is great, though hardly ahead of the game when we consider the urgent need to cut climate emissions. But given that petrols and diesels still make up around 90% of new car sales in the UK, it’s a very tall order to stop all new sales within 10 years, so the key lies in whether there’s a plan – a roadmap if you like – to get us to zero-sales by 2030.
The short answer is that there is, but it’s already hopelessly behind the clock. The EU has a plan to increase e-car sales, and it’s currently being transposed into British law for the post-Brexit era. But the EU’s law is inadequate, and the British transposition is even weaker.
Lib Dem leadership elections often bring up the same criticisms of the party:
People don’t know what we stand for.
We aren’t radical enough.
We need to advance a “core voter” strategy based on values, not just on being “hard working local people”.
I agree with all of these criticisms, but get weary when they are repeated ad infinitum without solutions. Both Davey and Moran talk about the importance of building a distinctive liberal message without saying what this distinctive liberal message should be. What I’m seeing from both candidates is a list of reasonable policy ideas which aren’t meaningfully linked (except by the vague claim that they are “liberal” or “evidenced-based”).
By Duncan Brack
| Thu 28th November 2019 - 11:57 am
One of the questions that’s likely to be asked in tonight’s Channel 4 environment leader’s debate is about the target date by which the UK should reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions. In the summer the government legislated for 2050. In September Liberal Democrat conference voted for our policy paper Tackling the Climate Emergency, which argued for 2045. The Labour conference voted for 2030 (though that’s not in their manifesto). The Green Party has gone for 2030, and Extinction Rebellion campaigns for 2025.
Against these targets, our policy can look rather cautious. 2045 seems like a long way away; doesn’t that mean that government will do nothing until a few years beforehand and then rush to hit it? I’m sure Lib Dem Voice readers know what’s wrong with that argument – although this was the approach that a Conservative minister genuinely suggested to Ed Davey when we were in government.
Arguing over the net zero target date in isolation is simplistic and misleading. In reality, reaching net zero will require enormous effort, stretching over decades and affecting all sectors of the economy; it’s not something you can leave to the last moment. The real debate we need to have is over how we plan to meet the target; what’s the policy programme that cuts emissions fast where we know how to, and lays the foundations for progress where we don’t yet know the right solutions? And when you start to think about what’s needed for electricity, heating, transport, aviation, industry, farming and land use – and how you persuade people to change the way they live their lives, because it isn’t only about government action – you start to understand why near-term targets like 2025 or 2030 are an unrealisable fantasy.
Liberal Democrats set out, in our policy paper and in the manifesto, how we can make rapid progress in cutting emissions from power generation, through accelerating the uptake of renewables, and in heat in buildings, through a massive energy efficiency programme. Between them we think we can cut UK emissions by more than half over ten years.
For me, Monday was one of the most uplifting days in politics for years. Conference overwhelmingly passed the motion connected to Policy Paper 139, “Tackling the Climate Emergency”. This commits the party to a policy of eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions from the UK economy by 2045 (or compensating for any residual emissions with additional carbon removal – what is known at “Net-Zero emissions”). It was great to see Jo Swinson then put our environmental policies at the heart of her leader’s speech the following day. Duncan Brack’s summation of Monday’s debate is also well worth a watch. He deserves huge credit for chairing our working group on climate change.
Committing to a target of net zero emissions by 2045 would bring the UK into line with its commitments under the Paris Agreement and the international aim to hold average global temperature rises to under 1.5 degrees. Both the British government and the European Commission are currently looking at a net zero target by 2050, which is unlikely to be enough. An amendment tabled by the Green Liberal Democrats to shift the target to 2040 attracted support but didn’t carry. Opinions vary on this point, but the paper and motion are clear: ‘the precise target date for achieving net zero is less important than urgent action to set the economy on the path’. Tough interim targets did pass (to cut emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 and 93 per cent by 2040).
But what is also hugely important is that our pathways – radical though they are – are science-based and backed-up with practical policies to make them a reality. We have worked out the nuts and bolts as well as the big vision. I highly recommend a glance at Policy Paper 139 for those interested in seeing what we are proposing in detail and who didn’t get a chance to read the full motion on Monday (or attend the debate). Its recommendations are connected to figures presented in an independent report (which I co-authored) and which was published at conference in 2017. That report contains the sector-by-sector emissions reductions pathways. It goes into detail on the technology, infrastructure and policy support required. The Guardian has hailed it as a ‘radical agenda for tackling climate emergency’.
Liberals are interested in the “little stories” as much as the “grand narratives”. And these reports provide both. As people all over the world join their children on climate strike this Friday, we should be proud that our party has just signed up to the most ambitious and credible programme of decarbonisation of any party in Europe. It is fine for Labour to consider a net-zero emissions target by 2030 – but you can bet your socks that they won’t dare publish how they plan to meet that target in practical terms. They can’t.
Lib Dem Voice is sponsoring a fringe event (yes, free food!) from 1:00 – 2:30 today at the Highcliff Marriott, Bournemouth, in the Dorchester North room.
Focussing on climate change, our panellists will be asked “What sacrifices are you prepared to make for the planet?”
We have Ed Davey, MP, now Deputy Leader of the party, coming to give his ideas of policy areas that could help shift society’s habits. Joining him will be Baroness Cathy Bakewell, our Lib Dem Lords Spokesperson for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Luke Murphy, Head of IPPR’s Environmental Justice Commission; Paul Sheeky from Extinction Rebellion; and Mark Campanale of the Carbon Tracker Initiative.
There will be lots of time for questions to our panellists – and also the opportunity to give your own ideas of what sacrifices you would be willing to make to save our planet.
Please come and be part of the discussion. I hope to see you there!
Lib Dems produce Bill to properly tackle plastics crisis
Today, Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for the Environment, will present his Plastic Pollution Bill to Parliament.
The Bill will set targets to help fix our plastics crisis and require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy for the reduction of plastic pollution.
The Bill has been backed by a cross-party group of MPs as well as Friends of the Earth and the Women’s Institute.
Ahead of presenting his Bill, Mr Carmichael said:
Plastic pollution is the scourge of our oceans. The Government must start taking action to reduce our plastic to change our
Since it was first introduced in the US in 2007, the idea of a Green New Deal has received substantial support amongst a wide range of the electorate worldwide, who are increasingly rallying their governments to tackle the imminent threat of climate change.
Recently gaining traction after the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to US Congress, the growing need to put a Green New Deal into practice is once again making its way to the forefront of global politics. Who will speak up for a deal like this in the UK?
A recent European Commission report revealed that the UK currently leads the way in fossil fuel subsidies, providing a staggering £10.5 billion to support the industry. The continuous commitment to propping up such environmentally harmful practices against the will of a large percentage of the UK populace is not only damaging to our mutual trust, but the future of our world.
The current state of British politics is at a critical point. At a time of great political upheaval across the nation, the Liberal Democrats have a chance to take centre-stage in refocusing the national agenda and rebuilding national trust in our party.
A UK Green New Deal is a way in which we do exactly that. A progressive, positive agenda which underlines the importance of protecting our nation’s economic interests as well as our environmental prospects. By wielding much more focus towards supporting renewable and cleaner energies and protecting our natural earth, we can also thousands of new jobs and lessen inequality in a fresh, booming new industrial sector.
It was a project which would power 150,000 households for 120 year, a program of lagoons at Swansea, Newport, Cardiff and Colwyn Bay which would create over 34,000 jobs in Wales alone. And Wales does need jobs. It was championed by the Lib Dems in Government, but, as has happened with so many Lib Dem ideas, it’s been cancelled today by the Tories.
The Welsh Liberal Democrats have condemned the decision as a huge missed opportunity and another example of the Conservatives’ neglect of Wales.
The lagoon was strongly backed by the government commissioned Hendry review in January 2017 and is supported by businesses, councils, MPs and AMs from all parties. The lagoon would have acted as a pathfinder project for other lagoons across Wales including Newport, Cardiff and Colwyn Bay.
Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds was furious that the opportunity to make Wales a world leader in green energy had been thrown away:
The Conservatives’ rejection of the Swansea Tidal Lagoon is a disgrace. The Swansea Tidal Lagoon would be a vital first step in making Wales a world leader in green energy, bringing untold environmental and economic benefits to the community, Wales and the UK.
The Welsh Liberal Democrats have consistently supported the Swansea Tidal Lagoon as a key part of our plans to develop an innovative, radical and ambitious green economy in Wales. It is deeply disappointing the Conservatives do not share our ambition.
When Ed Davey was Secretary of State for Climate Change he was totally behind the project. He called the cancellation an “historic mistake.”
Lib Dem Peer Robin Teverson has written for Politics Home about the effect of China’s ban on the importation of low grade waste should be a wake up call for us to sort out how we deal with this problem.
China’s import ban, at a stroke, destroys the business model of the UK waste industry, together with its supply chain. The knock-on effects are huge, impacting local authorities and business.
But the UK has been slow to react. Defra is working overtime on Brexit agricultural and fisheries reform, producing a two-years late 25-year environmental plan, getting thousands of EU environmental laws onto the post-Brexit UK statute book. Michael Gove, no less, admitted to the Environmental Audit Committee that he had been taken unawares.
Lack of progress in waste policy, especially in England, has been a contentious issue for some time, not least with a frustrated waste industry. Scotland and Wales have been more ambitious in finding solutions for the future. That lack of focus, in England especially, is no longer an option.
Think of Africa, and you think of elephants. But sadly, these glorious and magnificent animals are under serious threat from poaching. It is estimated that one elephant is killed every fifteen minutes by poachers who are part of a chain of criminal activity that makes immense profits from selling ivory tusks onto the global market. This illegal ivory is distributed all around the world with routes mirroring those of drugs, guns and trafficked people. It is shocking to find that more raw and carved ivory is traded through the EU to …
In yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, Michael Gove sets out his plans for an environmental watchdog post-Brexit. As education secretary under David Cameron, he was seen as a career hungry politician willing to risk quality education in a drive to create academies, open creationist schools and dictate what was taught in lessons. He was marginally better as Justice Secretary, but not much. Now, he is well on the road to becoming Britain’s leading environmental champion.
This is not the first conversion on the environmental road to Damascus but it could be one of the most important.
Lib Dems led the way with hugely successful plastic bag charge, leading to a reduction of over 85% in plastic bags, and followed last year with policy to introduce a small charge on disposable coffee cups.
The plans were rejected by government last year, but there appears to have been a U-turn.
Yesterday, Environment Minister Therese Coffey told the environmental audit committee that the government will consider introducing a coffee cup charge to tackle the 2.5 billion disposable cups thrown away each year.
Liberal Democrat Environment Spokesperson Tim Farron commented
By Caron Lindsay
| Sun 17th September 2017 - 10:09 am
Here is Lynne Feathestone’s speech to yesterday’s climate change debate. The party passed entirely predictable policy – in summary, Paris Agreement is fantastic. Trump and the Conservatives are awful and we are the party of renewables and the green economy.
This is what Lynne said:
It was a glorious moment in time
The signing of the Paris Agreement
The world coming together to do the right thing
Thinking of future generations
Accepting responsibility
Taking real action to turn the tide
A moment in time
But time is not on our side
And the battle intensifies
Even as 97% of experts – so beloved of Michael Gove – agree on climate change
Even as the world agrees on Climate Change
Even as we have had the hottest summers
The wettest storms
Sea levels rising
And the fiercest hurricanes in history
Climate deniers still propagate untruths
It’s a hoax made up by the Chinese
It’s a scam
scientists are fudging the numbers
In my time as Minister for International Development
I saw first hand the impact that climate change is already having in some of the poorest areas of the world
I stood in Darfur and felt desertification under my own feet.
I saw with my own eyes the ravages that too little water in Africa and too much in Asia can bring.
I implored governments and leaders to stop the fight between peoples over scarce resources.
I visited communities learning to adapt to climate change.
Those living in areas already deeply affected by climate change don’t question its existence.
They see it. They suffer from it. They didn’t cause it.
If we don’t succeed in adaptation, mitigation and keeping temperature rise below 2 degrees centigrade – then the tide of human misery we have seen fleeing conflict will be as nothing compared to those fleeing the worst ravages of climate change
Reading through our manifesto last week, I was pleased to see us champion the UK’s green credentials with a strong set of energy and climate policies.
While the environment isn’t a hot topic in this year’s campaign, it’s good to see Tim writing in Business Green about the need to change Britain’s future and clean up sectors like power, heat and transport.
Our manifesto will see the UK use renewables to generate up to 60 per cent of electricity by 2030; invest in solutions like energy storage, carbon capture and storage, and grid infrastructure; and pass a Zero-Carbon Britain Act to set new targets on cutting emissions.
This is a fantastic platform, and we should be proud of our record on supporting clean energy and protecting the environment.
However, I’d argue there are some areas in which we need to develop our approach:
1) Lib Dems have committed to staying a part of EURATOM (vital for our nuclear industry), but what about the EU’s internal energy market, or the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)?
2016 was a historic year in the global fight against wildlife crime. From the ivory bans to the new CITES protection for over 500 species – there is a lot we can be proud of.
But we would be kidding ourselves if we think the work here is done. Wildlife trafficking is still a top four global criminal activity and the money streams gained from it are often used to fund other illegal operations like arms trafficking and even terrorism.
Wildlife by its nature is unsupervised and therefore vulnerable to the criminal gangs who exploit it for massive profit.
As Brexit continues to hog the spotlight in the British media, there are still important issues being discussed and votes taking place in the European Parliament that Liberals everywhere should care about.
On the 15th February 2017, MEPs voted on a package of regulations intended to strengthen the proposed reforms to the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and added their own amendments.
Tellingly, the vote was welcomed by a number of high-emissions sectorsas well as the European Commission but heavily criticised by a number of NGOs and advocates of carbon market reform, with Climate Action Network, for example, describing the compromise as a betrayal of the spirit of the Paris Climate Agreement. Next week (on Tuesday 28th Feb) EU environment ministers will meet in Brussels to discuss how EU member states will respond to the vote.
The environment and its stewardship have long been and remain part of the DNA of Liberals everywhere. As part of its series of publications that challenge and progress thinking in a number of policy areas, the Social Liberal Forum (SLF) is pleased to announce the publication this week of “The European carbon market isn’t working – and social liberals should be worried” by SLF Council Member Edward Robinson
The article looks at the history of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), analyses why it has not been working in the way it was intended, and looks at possible reforms to the system that would make it more effective at stimulating carbon price inflation and driving the uptake of clean technologies.
Last month, Liberal Democrat peer Kate Parminter allowed us to publish her Burntwood Lecture to the Institution of Environmental Sciences in which she talked about the challenges Brexit poses to the environment.
Now the Institution has kindly said that we can publish some of their photographs of the event.
Credit: Institution of Environmental Sciences
Credit: Institution of Environmental Sciences
During her lecture, Kate talked about incorporating legislation into UK law, establishing systems for compliance and enforcement, joining EU frameworks and improving on EU policy. She concluded:
It should be clear that achieving this aim – this vision of a government and society and economy fully committed to environmental goals – will require an immense amount of persuasion. There will be many voices in favour of the first vision I set out – of a deregulated cheap-labour economy which devalues nature and despoils the environment – though of course they wouldn’t describe it that way – and they need countering with argument and facts and passion.
It’s an honour to have been asked to present the Burntwood Lecture this year, and to follow in the footsteps of such an illustrious parade of former speakers. Many of your previous guests have been eminent scientists or fearless campaigners; I stand here tonight to deliver this lecture (pause) as a politician. That’s not inappropriate, however: Lord Burntwood, the IES’ first Chairman, whose name the lecture commemorates, was himself a member of parliament and a minister in Clement Attlee’s Labour government. But more importantly, it’s not inappropriate because the great challenge of our time, the subject on which I’ve been asked to speak, is itself primarily political: Brexit.
How the United Kingdom manages its withdrawal from the European Union will shape this country’s future for decades. In the absence of any clarity from the government over what it sees as the final destination of this process, I hope I can enlist everyone here in helping me to draw up the broad approach the UK should adopt in dealing with environmental policy post-Brexit. I’m going to tell you what I think, and I hope you’ll respond at the end with thoughts of your own.
There are two competing visions for the future of the UK outside the EU. One – hinted at by some of the supporters of the Leave side during the referendum, but never fully articulated – is of a country free of the kind of burdensome regulations they liked to pretend emanated from Brussels; a fleet-footed, buccaneering, free-trading nation spotting openings in the global marketplace and exploiting them ruthlessly. This vision implies a deregulated low-cost low-tax low-value economy – with clear implications for environmental policy. In May this year, for example, George Eustice, the farming minister, attacked – quotes – ‘spirit-crushing’ EU directives, including, explicitly, the birds and habitats directives – and went on to criticise the use of the precautionary principle as the basis of EU legislation, a criticism echoed by many of his colleagues. You may remember that this kind of approach echoes Conservative ministers’ attempts, during the coalition government, to water down or scrap environmental regulations through such initiatives as the Red Tape Challenge and the balance of competences review – attempts which, happily, Liberal Democrat ministers ensured came to nothing.
The environment was our theme at the Liberal Democrats in Business dinner in Oxford last night (after a session of polling-day phone banking for Sarah Olney!).
We were pleased to welcome as speakers Baroness Kate Parminter, Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader in the Lords and Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Dr Imad Ahmed of the Department of Earth Sciences, Oxford University.
Just in the news today is reporting of a move by major cities to ban diesel vehicles. This is due to their production of particulate matter (PM) and nitrous oxide (NOx). Dr Ahmed, in his talk, showed pictures of the effect of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) on the brain.
The link between our health and the air we breathe was also made by Kate Parminter. Baroness Parminter spoke to us on environmental policy and what we should be doing now.
Finally the report from The Committee of Climate Change on fracking has been released and produced some interesting results, raising concerns of the effect of fracking on the UKs climate change targets.
Shale gas production of the UK is not going to be the answer to our energy needs when it comes to meeting our climate change targets. It is now obvious the UK has missed the boat on this ‘payday’ unless development is done on a huge scale, industrializing vast areas of rural England. The recommended regulations in the report to facilitate the size of expansion needed will never be in place.
The regulations needed to mitigate fugitive emissions are also not financially viable, making the cost of fracking even more expensive. There will always be methane leaks, the industry cannot stop it. The industry’s own figures of 2% to 5% expected leakage of methane from exploration, production and the supporting infrastructure needed, will put the UKs climate change targets in jeopardy.
The report states that ‘UK shale gas production must displace imported gas rather than increasing domestic consumption. Allowing unabated consumption above these levels would not be consistent with the decarbonisation required under the Climate Change Act.’ Each alternative has an almost identical climate change footprint and the imports are likely to be cheaper. If the government commits to use domestic fracked gas this will drive up energy prices and eventually hit the poorest families in the pocket!
The report does not consider the ongoing technical issues such waste disposal, water pollution, set back distances, community disruption, seismic concerns, industrialisation, etc. etc. etc! It is time for the government to stop bending over for the gas and oil lobbyists and realise they are backing the wrong horse.
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