Last week the government published its plan to set the UK on a permanent low carbon footing, a strategy that it hopes will also maximise economic opportunities, growth and employment. The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan spells out in some detail how the UK will meet the recent budget proposal to cut emissions by 34% (1990 levels) by 2020. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, a 21% reduction has already been delivered - equivalent to cutting emissions entirely from four cities the size of London.
The ‘targets’, if that’s the right word to use in this context, are ambitious to say the least. More than 1.2 million people are expected to be employed in the ‘Green’ sector; some seven million homes will enjoy ‘pay-as-you-save’ home energy makeovers, and more than 1.5 million households will receive incentives to produce their own clean energy. Some 40% of electricity will be from low carbon sources (renewables, nuclear and clean coal); we will need to import about half the amount of gas that we otherwise would, and the average new car will emit 40% less carbon than that which is currently achievable.
And what is the cost of all this to the consumer? The department says that the plan will not increase average energy bills by 2015, compared to now. However, by 2020, the impact of all climate change policies, both existing and new, will be to add, on average, around 8% (£92) to today's household bills. That doesn’t sound a lot for so much gain, but it could nonetheless tip vulnerable groups into fuel poverty. And unless the regulator is given more teeth, we could see all manner of excuses coming from energy suppliers wanting to raise prices by considerably more than this.
Losing one’s bottle
Bundanoon, a little town of 2,000 souls in New South Wales, is the first community in Australia – and possibly the world - to ban bottled water. Thanks to an overwhelming vote by about a fifth of the town’s population against this example of packaging lunacy, shops in Bundanoon are now banned from stocking and selling the stuff. Instead, filtered water fountains will be strategically placed around the town so that people can fill and thus reuse their bottles for free. Tourists to the town, we are told, will be discouraged but not banned, from drinking bottled water. Though I expect they will have to run the gamut of dirty looks.
It all comes back to climate change and carbon dioxide emissions. Campaigners say bottling water causes unnecessary use of plastics and fuel for transport. A New South Wales study back in 2006 claimed that the industry was responsible for releasing 60,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases. Indeed, the good folk of Bundanoon have had a bee in its collective bonnet for years over this issue, ever since a Sydney-based beverage company announced plans to build a water extraction plant in the town. Residents took exception to the prospect of an outsider taking their water, trucking it up to Sydney for processing and then selling it back to them. The town is reportedly still fighting the company's proposal in court.
I must admit, I can’t help feeling that the townsfolk of Bundanoon have provided us with an admirable demonstration of common sense. Perhaps it’s the ‘grumpy old man’ in me, but there was a time when water to quench one’s thirst was really only universally available from the municipal water board via a tap. People walking about in temperate climes or seated in air conditioned concert halls grasping and regularly swigging from plastic bottles is an all-too-recent phenomenon that I still find difficult to understand.
The medics might applaud it as a creditable means of keeping hydrated, but let’s face it, unless we’re really burning the calories at some strenuous exercise or working hard under a tropical sun, our bodies should be able to cope. After all, it has taken several million years of evolution to ensure that those of us in a reasonable state of health should be capable of getting from one watering hole to the next on a single refill.
And talking of watering holes – mine’s a pint!
Les Hunt
Editor
Technology analyst, Nick Cook responded at 13.39 Monday 20 July:
21% down, 13% to go, this is brilliant news, we are 60% of the way to saving the planet, all we need now is for every other country to do the same. Just a minute though, there seems to be a bit of detail missing which I think is: how did we manage to save 21% of our emissions before we started trying?
It would be interesting to see how our emissions correlate with our decline in manufacturing industry. I’ve no doubt that we have made some savings but ,at the risk of sounding cynical, I wonder if what we have done is exported a sizeable chunk of our emissions as manufacturing industry to other countries such as China and Eastern Europe?. Also a move away from coal and oil to gas for power generation must have made a difference.
So far we have reduced industry's energy use but increased overall consumption and still managed to reduce emissions, but I'm not sure how much more we can reduce emissions in this way. Maybe this is behind the government's strategy of bailing out the banks with 100’s of £Bn but not doing the same for industry!