Archived press release

Government Climate Change Paper. Principles Welcome but FOE says "Fewer options: more action"

26 October 1998

The Government's paper on fighting climate change, published today, sets out welcome green principles, according to Friends of the Earth. But the environment pressure group says that the paper still has “too many choices, and not enough action”. Labour's Election promise to cut road traffic appears to have been abandoned, and the paper is ambiguous about the manifesto pledge to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2010. FOE is writing to Tony Blair to seek clarification on both these points.

FOE has welcomed the commitments in principle to:
. More efficient and cleaner industry
. Less traffic congestion
. Cleaner air
. Warmer homes, and
. Job creation (FOE research shows that up to 250,000 jobs could be created in achieving Labour's promise of a 20% cut in CO2 emissions by 2010).

However, the radical ambitions of John Prescott, Michael Meacher and the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions continue to be frustrated by the Treasury and Department of Trade and Industry, apparently with the backing of No10. Although the less radical UK commitment under the Kyoto agreement is described as a “target”, paragraph 4 of the paper refers to the 20% cut as only a “goal”. Paragraph 14 of the paper commits the Government only to move “towards” a 20%reduction, an apparent retreat from Labour's manifesto commitment.

The paper also admits for the first time that emissions from road traffic will rise, even after the Government's policies set out in the Green Paper “A New Deal for Transport” are put in place.(Paragraph 127 of the paper predicts a rise in traffic emissions from 33MtC in 1990 to 35.5 MtC by 2010). This breaks repeated Ministerial pledges that road traffic levels will be cut. FOE says that the 20% target cannot be met without traffic cuts.

Other key points about the paper include:
. a commitment to increase generation of electricity from renewable sources to 10% of total supplies, although the paper lacks a clear plan to achieve this
. an essentially voluntary approach towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions by industry.FOE believes that tougher regulation will be needed

FOE Executive Director Charles Secrett commented:
“There is much to welcome in this paper. John Prescott and Michael Meacher are clearly fighting hard for radical environmental action. But Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and - sorry to say - Tony Blair, seem still to be slowing progress. To plan for road traffic increases, for example, is simply unacceptable. Tony Blair says that Government is about tough choices - but he's supposed to make them, not publish them and hope the public will do the job for him.What's the use of setting a target, if you don't then take proper aim at it?”

ENDS

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust