UK "Greenest Gov. Ever" Apparently Poised To Go Under Low Bar Set By Outgoing Labor -

[hatrack]

EDIT

In 2009 George Osborne promised that, under a Conservative government, the Treasury would "no longer be the cuckoo in the Whitehall nest when it comes to climate change”. The Treasury would be a “friend not a foe to the environment”, he said.(4) This week it was revealed that the Chancellor and the Treasury are lobbying for the Climate Change Committee’s recommendations on CO2 cuts to be watered down.(5) Not so much a cuckoo as a vulture.

The real cuckoo in the nest is Business Secretary Vince Cable. A letter leaked to The Guardian earlier this week showed that he was also lobbying for the Climate Change Committee proposals to be rejected, thereby making a mockery of of both the Lib Dems’ pre-election call for the CCC to be strengthened and of the party’s plans for a Zero Carbon Britain by 2050. Cable was quoted as saying that: "Agreeing too aggressive a level risks burdening the UK economy, which would be detrimental to UK, undermining the UK's competitiveness and our attractiveness as a place to do business." He also proposed buying "carbon offsets" to help the UK meet its emissions targets in the 2020s, instead of boosting green industries.(5)

With hindsight the writing was on the wall pretty early on in the administration when Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman published a deplorable paper on sustainable development and vindictively abolished the Sustainable Development Commission.(6) It wasn’t expensive – it was just saying politically difficult things. She also offered up a 30% cut to the DEFRA budget which has led to delays in all work and deep cuts in flood defence funding.(7) Politically the most disastrous of all was her proposed privatisation of forests which Cameron himself was forced to abandon in the House of Commons.(8) That was a rare win by outraged public opinion but the fight is on every front.

Housing Minister, Grant Shapps, has rowed back on the previous government's commitment that all new housing would be zero carbon by 2016 infuriating green commentators.(9) The UK Green Building Council's Chief Executive, Paul King, said: “The world leading commitment that new homes would not add to the carbon footprint of our housing stock from 2016 has been scrapped despite a remarkable consensus between industry and NGOs in support of it... This U-turn will result in loss of confidence leading to lower investment, less innovation, fewer green jobs and fewer carbon reductions. It is a backward step.”(10)

EDIT

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-05-13/greenest-government-ever

[kristopher]

1. The examples of rightwing policies being repackaged as "green" abound... nt