Green Week or Green Wash?

The weekend papers heralded the launch of the Government's "Green Week" this week, so we are all preparing to see what comes out.

The Guardian calls it a "tacit admission" that this is not yet the "greenest government ever" and that Cameron, Clegg and Huhne will get a grip on more reluctant members of the Government.  It even claims Minister's job security will depend on delivering green policies.

The worry is that what is promised could be a rehash of what should have happened already rather than new policies.  At the heart of the week is to  be a "Carbon Plan" - or at least a draft version of it.  It may look a good move in newspaper headlines, but in reality such a plan is a legal requirement of the Climate Change Act that became law in 2008.

In opposition, senior Conservatives often said they would implement their green policies early if they won the election.  This was not just because tackling climate change is urgent, but because it takes time for people to see the benefits.  If you take four years to launch a home insulation scheme, few voters will have noticed by the next election.  Other policies - London's congestion charge for example - get a terrible press as they are being introduced, but after a couple of years people see the extra cash in public transport, and lower (if not low) congestion.

Almost a year into this Government, the top brass are right to have noticed too little has happened.  Look at the big ticket policies - the Green Investment Bank is not confirmed as a bank (it could yet just be a fund), and it may not even be particularly green.  The much vaunted loans to help pay for home energy efficiency improvements - the Green Deal - are unlikely to spark the explosion in home improvements that we need.  And the loan structure will probably limit them to basic measures like loft insulation.   As Labour pointed out last week, there is still no sign of the Renewable Heat Incentive.

On waste - another quick and easy way to cut our carbon emissions - the Government's Waste Review is looking worryingly unambitious, with Eric Pickles  more interested in telling councils when to collect bins than how to reduce the rubbish we end up burying and burning.

The one time Government did move fast was on the Feed-in Tariff - the payments to encourage people to install their own renewable power.  Unfortunately moving fast in this context meant introducing new caps on the money in the scheme, and then throwing the whole industry into massive uncertainty by bringing forward a review.

So we will be watching the announcements carefully this week - checking if they are new, or just a mix of things the law requires Minsters to do, and things that were announced before.  And most important of all, checking them to see if they put the UK on track to cutting emissions to help avoid the worst climate change.  Because in the end, even being the "greenest government ever" is not enough.  The Government needs to raise its sights and be green enough to avoid disaster - not just a tiny bit greener than the one before.