The Big Ask Climate Debate

1 November 2006

Readers thoughts

Climate change has to be the most important issue of our times and it is a relief to see Tony Blair raising the debate and asking for comments. What is more important is to know that the government are actually listening. There is a huge amount that can be done to lower our fuel usage and carbon emissions.

I do not believe that nuclear power is the answer. At this time we are gifted with an enormous opportunity. Our power structure needs overhauling. Instead of the huge financial cost of replacing nuclear power stations we have the chance to invest in a completely different way of meeting power demands. Why not go for the more robust, more flexible , more efficient system of decentralized energy?

Amy Lambart

Dear Tony B,

We have to have annual targets even if you have to add 100 statisticians to the government payroll who annually adjust figures. Once the modeling is worked out, it would we good if we could move towards monthly monitoring of the figures. If we can do it for RPI, we should be able to do it carbon emissions.

You have appointed a great Environment secretary; David Miliband. Please don't move him early.

David Miliband has floated the idea of personal carbon allowances. FOE and other NGOs are say that this is a long term fix and we need to do other things in the short term. All true.

However personal carbon allowances require the green light from Treasury, possibly large pilot schemes and IT infrastructure not to mention buy in from Parliament and possibly the electorate; it is all going to take years and we must not tackle these tasks sequentially. Could you please bring the relevant ministers together and draw up a tentative plan for their introduction to give the government of the day at some time in the future the option of introducing them.

My fear is that MPs and Ministers might decide that personal carbon allowances are necessary very late in the day and rush through evaluation, legislation and infrastructure causing disruption and at great expense to the taxpayer.

John Ackers

It seems to me that even massive issues like climate change and resource depletion are merely symptoms of a deeper problem.

Our stimulated desire for ever more personal consumption (and thus the economic growth to feed it) seems to me by its nature to have a very limited lifespan, and even the many proposed 'techno-fixes' for climate and depletion issues fail to address our fundamental mistaken paradigm, and so may themselves only lead to further unforeseen problems.

Surely development should be measured in human happiness and contentment, not in 'how much', 'how fast' or 'how many'. And measuring our current society in terms of happiness, are we really still developing, or do we need to face facts and think again?

On a practical level, I think David Fleming's TEQs scheme (www.teqs.net) would be a brilliant way of addressing our country's immediate problems with these vast issues.

Shaun Chamberlin

If we were to reduce emissions enough to avoid climate change there would be a steady yearly reduction regardless of whether we experience a particularly cold winter. We need to make huge changes and we need to implement them now!

Individuals also need to take responsibility, but this should also be encouraged and facilitated by some very bold government policies. Great infrastructure changes are needed along with green taxes to make the polluters pay (from industry to individuals). This would encourage research and a change of attitudes to the environment and environmental responsibility across the board. We need alternatives to the wasteful lifestyles we lead and this means regulating industry and businesses and putting money into really progressive ideas and technologies (not nuclear). The means and the will exist! We just need to change the focus of research and work with other countries rather than point the finger and look for excuses. Then if we were really progressive we could be providing the technology and consultancy to the rest of the world.

Claire Cannon

This year October 9th was declared 'Ecological Debt Day', the day by which we had used up a whole year of the Earth's natural productivity (forests, farming, fisheries etc). This date has been getting earlier and earlier each year. Clearly this is not sustainable. It's important to get carbon emissions down (though perhaps a 'war on carbon' will be harder to sell than a 'war on terror). However it's vital that we cut our consumption as well. Plenty of studies have shown than beyond a certain point health and wellbeing is not improved by increasing consumption. Please encourage us to look to other sources of happiness rather than encouraging us to fix economic problems by going out to spend, spend, spend...

Eric Maddern

Since Solar radiation at Saharaian latitudes delivers 300% more energy /heat than in the UK and ,according to the German Fed Gov report (see link via www.trec-uk.org.uk) only 10% is lost in transmission using HVDC. (60% is now wasted at powerstations in the UK!)

A) why is no funding invested in a super HVDC renewable grid that would overcome fluctuations in output as well as enable export of our own "of peak " renewables" and the importation of CSP generated electricity through more than one transmission line enabeling a better "mix" & security of supply?

B ) why is the subsidy per £1 of solar thermal REPLACEMENT electricity only 10% while Nuke power Wind or PV panels 40%? (yet ouput cost per £ is 10x better!)

C) Since peak oil will have a massive impact on the global economy and oil consumnption has resulted in global warming why is there no V.A.T on aviation fuel whose funds could be transfered to public transport?

Andrew Tweedie

The current Carbon Dioxide emission rate is simply out of control and MUST be addressed for the sake of us all. Industry may resist and complain as change always brings fear but this fear pales into insignificance compared to the fear of the consequence of no action. The proposed target of a 3% annual reduction in carbon emissions must be introduced immediately and with a legal framework in place industry will have the confidence to make the necessary investment required knowing that the new legal structures and policies are here to stay. Research carried out between the Co-operative Bank and Friends of the Earth demonstrates how we can make a successful, low-carbon economy a reality in our lifetimes and with a legal framework this can be achieved.

With so much scientific intelligence in this country surely we should be leading the rest of the world by example. So much time and money goes into fighting terrorism which of course is a serious threat but as your own Scientific Adviser Sir David King has already said climate change is "a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism".

On behalf of us all and future generations PLEASE make this annual 3% reduction the law; we really cannot afford to deliberate over this any longer. Who wants to look back and wish they had done more to prevent the end of the world as we know it? Not me. I will do all I can in my own way to make my carbon footprint as small as possible but it is you Mr Blair who can radically change things and lead from the front in that change. Be remembered for enforcing the positive change that could possibly save us.

Linda Cox

Dear PM,

We are in the middle of the 6th Extinction - species are dying out everywhere and we will be next. Forget votes, forget shopping and consumerism, forget the economy - we will soon be fighting for the survival of our own species... you need to act NOW and shut down all airports and impose massive taxes on roads and issue everyone with a carbon ration. This country needs to show the world that we all need to be on a War Footing because we are at war with the climate and we are well on our way to losing... PLEASE act as if you take Global Warming seriously, and don't continue to tinker at the edges as you have or haven't been doing up to now....

Cathy Green

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Opening statements

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