Climate change - can we buy our way out?

I've recently become a member of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, and we've just started what I think is going to be an important enquiry into the new trend for "carbon offsetting". That's the idea that you make up for some activity which produces greenhouse gases (like flying), by paying for another activity which leads to a reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases somewhere else.

The idea sounds attractive - but there are a lot of question marks about the idea. One of big problems is that many of the schemes which offer this type of "carbon offsetting" do so by promising "carbon cuts" a long time into the future, for action which damages the environment today. For example, you can buy a "carbon offset" for £6 or so which is meant to pay for the environmental damage caused by a flight to New York; but the supposed cuts in carbon emissions won't be completed until several decades have passed, a long time after the flight has happened. And, of course, we need to start making big cuts in carbon emissions now, not doing thins which are going to create more carbon emissions in the short term against a promise to make savings in the future.

The more I learn about carbon emissions, I wonder if there is a lot of "smoke & mirrors" about some of the carbon offsetting schemes at the moment, although the idea probably has some value for schemes which are carefully monitored to make sure there really are genuine carbon savings, here and now, from the "offset".

About the blog..

I thought I'd explain why I made changes to the way people can add their comments to this blog. Firstly, a lot of the comments being made were anonymous. I don't mind (too much!) people being critical - after all, I want this blog to be an opportunity for debate - but I think it's fair to ask people to be prepared to identify themselves if they're making comments. Secondly, I was getting a lot of "spam" - which is why my blog now incorporates a feature which, hopefully, will keep that out - at least for a while!

I would also like to assure people that although I will moderate ( i.e. check) comments made on this blog, I certainly don't intend to keep out negative comment - have a look at some of the comments on it already! - but I do want to keep out any abusive or defamatory comments, for obvious reasons!

Pulling out of Iraq

The House of Commons chamber was packed for quite a while yesterday, to hear both Prime Minister's Questions and also his statement on Iraq. I'm glad to see that there was an announcement about the withdrawal of some British troops. I have to say, however, that I would like to have seen a much clearer indication of when British troops as a whole would be withdrawn. Although I voted against the war, I've always recognised that - partly as a result of the action we took - we also had a responsibility not just to walk out on the Iraqi people. But from all that I can see it seems pretty clear to me that our military presence is achieving less and less, and is itself contributing to the tensions. That means we should be making arrangements to withdraw our troops this year, within weeks or months - certainly not keeping them there until 2008 and beyond as some have suggested.

Local Income Tax campaign

I´ve just been sent details (at the end of this post) of the new website for the Edinburgh Against Local Income Tax website - an interesting list of first signatories.

Obviously this site is pretty partisan - but it does give quite a good run-down on the arguments against introducing a new local income tax.

Local tax is of course a matter for the Scottish Parliament - but obviously the system of local taxation is an important part of the overall tax package. Personally, I think it is right to have a package of taxes as relying too heavily on one source can be unfair and make tax evasion easier.

www.edinburghagainstlocalincometax.co.uk gives some of the arguments - I´d be interested in any responses!

Pensioners get the "union dividend" too!

I was pleasantly surprised last Thurday in the House of Commons when I was able to get the first official confirmation that the governments in Westminster and Scotland were actively investigating the possibility of linking the concessionary travel schemes which will soon be operating in England as well as Scotland (where the Labour Ministers in the Executive can take the credit for introducing a Scotland-wide national scheme well in advance of the similar scheme which will start in England in 2008.

I´ve raised the issue a couple of times before , because it seemed to me there was an obvious anomaly in that at present the two schemes are to be separate. So a pensioner in Newcastle, for example, would be able to get free travel in Cornwall, but not in, or to travel to, Edinburgh. And similarly a pensioner in Edinburgh would get free bus travel in Orkney, but not in or to Newcastle, nor would they be able to get pensioners´ concessionary travel in London, either.

I therefore raised the anomaly with the junior transport minister in a debate on buses in Parliament last week. As I say, I was pleasantly surprised when he confirmed he was investigating this possibility, because there hadn´t been a previous announcement about this. Maybe he let the cat out of the bag before the official announcement!

I hope this type of scheme is put into effect - it will be a nice example of another "union dividend", i.e. the mutual advantages of Scotland and England being together in the UK. Presumably there would be little chance of such a scheme being set up if England and Scotland were totally separate countries!

A green election?

Today's papers (and yesterdays TV and radio) had quite a lot from Jack McConnell's speech at the Botanics setting out his "green" agenda. I was there to hear him, and it was clear that he has a real commitment on these issues (and that's not just me being a loyal Labour Party member, that was also the comment from quite a few of the representatives of the green NGOs in the audience!).

As a result of being at that meeting, I was asked to go on BBC Radio Scotland and TV that evening to talk about the issues. I thought we had a reasonable discussion on the radio - not so satisfactory on TV, but that's probably down to the fact that we had only 10 minutes there, as opposed to almost 30 minutes on radion.

By and large, a reasonably mature debate, although shortage of time (and imminent elections!) always makes it difficult to have a real discussion on complex issues. One interesting exchange was when SNP enviroment spokesperson Richard Lochhead accused the Green's Robin Harper of being a "caveman", because he, like me, challenged the SNP for its line that economic growth is more important than environmental sustainability. If that's what the SNP think of the Green Party, it doesn't suggest they'd be happy coalition partners if the SNP were to end up with most seats!

For my part, I pointed out that the SNP could hardly claim to be "pro-environment" when their policy papers made it clear they were in favour of even more roads, even more airports and flights, cuts in fuel duty, and a whole host of other measures that would be bound to lead to even more greenhouse gas emissions than at present! They are also against a new civil nuclear power programme (as indeed am I), but as they also seem to be opposed to most new onshore windfarms, this hardly adds up to a coherent policy on energy!

Climate Change - the evidence is overwhelming

Friday saw the latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change. The evidence and overwhelming scientific opinion is now conclusive, and yet I see there are still some "climate change deniers" out there. At least in the UK, however, the political momentum behind action is pretty powerful, and I was pleased that the Environment Secretary David Miliband, who visited Edinburgh, including Leith, on Friday made clear his personal commitment to action.

The test, of course, for all politicians is are we going to deliver enough to make a difference, and quickly enough. I know that's what we have to do - I, for one, find the prospects outlined by the International Panel terrifying. It's clear that if we - by which mean this country, but the world community as a whole as well - don't take radical action, we are facing massive economic and social disruption at the least, and possibly the effective end of human civilisation itself. And yet we're still actually subsidising new air flights to and from Scotland, for instance, a policy which is supported by all the major political parties in Scotland. We've got to start examining this type of policy to see if it really can be compatible with a comprehensive policy on tackling climate change - and of course there are other examples both domestically and internationally which raise similar questions about how consistent they are with a commitment to tackle climate change.

P.S. For those who've noticed the gap in the blog, I've had a lot of problems with spam and the like - I've taken steps which will hopefully deal with that!