At last the phoney war is over, the election will be called tomorrow, and now the main parties will have to reveal their true strategies for winning power. Policies will be set in stone, or at least written up in party manifestos and justified or discredited in the face of questions and criticism.
This thread is for discussion of any matters in the forthcoming campaign that specifically apply to ‘climate, the countryside and landscapes’. My feeling at the moment is that the main parties, with the possible exception of the Lib Dems, will avoid the subject of AGW like the plague. In fact it would surprise me if even the Greens make a big issue of it other than to make the preposterous claim that moving to a low carbon economy will be a panacea for the present fiscal meltdown.
I hope that I am wrong about this, as it is high time for this whole subject to be dragged into the open and take its rightful place at the centre of the public debated on who will lead the country into the coming decade. The electorate should have an opportunity to make their feelings known to those who will form the next government, whoever that may be.
So if you spot anything that seems relevant among the torrent of electoral verbiage that is about to descend on us, please put a comment and a link here, not on the NS thread where it will quickly become lost and forgotten. What the politicians – and others who can influence their policies – have to say over the next few weeks is likely to be the best guide we can find to how the recent convulsions in the climate debate are feeding through into changed attitudes to AGW among policy-makers.
If major controversies, or apparent changes in political thinking that are relevant to the subjects that Harmless Sky covers emerge during the campaign, then I will open other threads as and when appropriate. If you feel that a new thread covering a particular aspect of the campaign is needed, then please let me know.
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Related thread: Election fever
h/t Brute for link to image
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As I may have mentioned before on this blog, I am leading a local (and so far successful) initiative to develop a large (5 acres – shared 50/50 with an allotment development) Community Garden. To recruit volunteers, I have attended some meetings of my local “Transition Town” organisation – its objective: to help “our community respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of Peak Oil and Climate Change”. Those here who know my views will understand why, although my project is admired, I am treated with some suspicion.
Well, they, together with Friends of the Earth, are organising a “Green Hustings” next week where they plan that all local GE candidates will be quizzed on their “green” agendas. It should be interesting. Unfortunately I cannot be there: a question, for example, about the UK’s vote on the World Bank and South African coal power proposal might have been revealing. But we’re invited to submit proposed questions by email and I’ll suggest something on that subject. I’ll let you know what happened.
So far, the only references CC by the candidates to the ‘greatest threat of our time’ that I have heard are:
Ed Miliband: While being tied in knots during a an interview with Eddie Mayer on the PM program he just managed to gabble that a re-elected Labour government would create a million jobs in new high tech and green industries.
Nick Clegg: On the Today programme this morning said that a Liberal administration would ‘deal with climate change’. This promise was lumped in with a list of other things to be dealt with like the economy, unemployment, the national debt etc.
Tony – I do like your photo of the bears. I was trying to work out who was who – the one lying down looks like he’s had a very good lunch, so that is Cameron, perhaps, although I imagine that Broon gets fed quite well, too…
I’ve just seen where the photo came from, so thanks to Brute, too!
According to this, on March 17th, Ed Miliband – our esteemed Climate Change Secretary – “predicted that climate change could emerge as one of the top three issues at the forthcoming election”. Er not quite, Ed. According to the Sun this morning, “Green Issues” (whatever that means) comes in at no. 9 on the list of voters’ concerns. Yet “The Economy” romps home at no. 1: don’t people recognise the huge impact that measures to “combat climate change” will have on the economy? No, I suppose not.
The Guardian is inviting all “green” organisations to make their demands of the parties in the coming election at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/07/environmental-demands-for-the-2010-election
they say: “We are inviting NGOs and other civil society organisations to submit their political environment “wish list”. We’re interested in demands from climate change to conservation, and everything in between”.
Sounds like Harmless Sky would qualify.
Also in today’s online Guardian – this about Green business leaders on the chances of a “green election”.
The final paragraph: “Overall experts are sceptical that climate change and the low carbon economy can knock questions about leadership and the recession from the top of the electoral agenda, and are increasingly frustrated that no party has fully articulated how low carbon businesses could provide the foundations for a healthy and sustainable economic recovery. However, optimism remains that the electoral microscope could yet settle on large number of environmental issues, in large part as a result of inconsistencies in all the leading parties’ approach to climate change.”
Re the low carbon businesses/economic recovery thing, going by Spain’s example the exact opposite would appear to be the case, so no surprises that no-one has been able to work out the details!
However, I don’t quite follow the last bit. What I think they’re saying is that there are inconsistencies in the main parties’ approach to climate change and that these might be picked up on (by voters? by pundits?) as the election nears.
But what inconsistencies are these, exactly? I can’t think of many significant ones, apart from the Heathrow 3rd runway, which Labour generally support but Conservatives and LibDems don’t. Apart from that, they’re all singing from the same hymn sheet, as far as I’m aware. And as Robin’s link shows, green issues appear to be in 9th place anyway, behind family and childcare.
I think they might need rather a large microscope.
The ‘green’ bits of the 3 big parties’ manifestos are all the same and all sound like an infomercial:
Dealing with these in reverse order… (not the steak knives)
The UK does have thriving world-leading industries – in niche areas and not chosen by govt committee. The idea that the govt can pick winners is a non-starter. Success stories are niches like pop music and F1 car racing.
The green jobs is another myth. Think of WW2. The forces did soak up a lot of labour – pretty much everyone. Full employment. But it wasn’t very good for national prosperity because they weren’t making things that people want to buy. This is still true today – if the govt spends money on things that people don’t want then it creates jobs but destroys wealth. If a lot of your money disappears on stuff you don’t want then you are poorer.
Of course if climate change were to be a real problem and the remedies really did fix it then it would be worth doing even if it destroyed millions of jobs and destroyed whole industries and ate up a lot of wealth. It would be worth the sacrifice. Just like WW2 in fact. A battle for survival.
So bringing in some lame reasons – jobs, hi-tech prowess – actually weakens the primary argument – the planet.
And when you investigate the secondary claims they turn out to be bogus as well.
Jack’s comments on the “wartime spirit” which the warmists are trying to evoke (#9) – brilliant. It’s because there’s hardly anyone around now to remember the reality of WW2 that politicians think they can get away with this. I think this kind of analysis of the sociology, or collective psychology, of the warmist movement will take us further than conspiracy theories.
PS Did anyone notice that the excellent recent Washington Post article practically quoted verbatim TonyN’s comment about “they don’t know what’s hit them”?
Geoff:
Do you have a link for that Washington Post article?
Sorry, it was the Wall Street Journal, here
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574572091993737848.html
para2. (Bishop Hill linked it)
The WSJ piece was good. But, as it was dated two months earlier (3 December 2009) than TonyN’s post, Daniel Henninger’s “I don’t think most scientists appreciate what has hit them” cannot have been a quote from our kindly host.
The BBC have a handy election guide on their website here, where you can compare all the parties’ policies on various issues, including the environment.
On greenhouse gas targets, for instance:
Lab: 34% cut in greenhouse gases emissions by 2020 and 80% cut by 2050.
Con: Want 34% reduction in greenhouse gases emissions by 2020 and 80% cut by 2050.
LibDem: 40% reduction in greenhouse gases emissions by 2020 rising to 100% by 2050.
Green: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2030, or approximately 10% per year.
Plaid Cymru: Want 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in Wales by 2020.
SNP: Highlight SNP government legislation to reduce Scottish greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050.
Sinn Fein: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% on 1990 levels by 2020.
Some exceptions:
BNP: Nothing about targets but they appear to support off-shore wind farms, nevertheless.
UKIP: Believe that theory of man-made climate change is not yet proven (hurrah!)
Otherwise, it’s a little like being in the Monty Python spam sketch: there’s egg and spam, egg, bacon and spam, spam, bacon, sausage and spam…etc… (Cue the Viking chorus.)
Cameron was flashing his green credentials on the Today programme this morning. Most startling was a claim that the Climate Bill was a Tory initiative hijacked by Labour. I’ll post a link when one becomes available later.
Geoff: Many thanks for the link.
Tony, there was an exchange between Ed Miliband and Greg Clark yesterday, which has some bearing on this. I listened to it on Radio 4’s “Yesterday in Parliament” while driving to work this morning – here’s the Hansard transcript.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con): If we want to lead the world, we need policy, not just targets. Had it not been for Conservative leadership on the environment during this Parliament, Britain would have no feed-in tariffs, no renewable heat incentive, no ban on new unabated coal, no roll-out of smart meters and no Climate Change Act 2008. On every measure, Labour first opposed us and then adopted our policy. So will the Secretary of State say, “Thank you” to the Conservative party for achieving more in Opposition in five years than Labour’s 19 Ministers did in 13 years of dithering in office?
Edward Miliband: I will not say, “Thank you.” The reality of the Conservative party’s record in this Parliament on climate change is that it began with the stunt with the huskies, initiated by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), and it ends with the Leader of the Opposition saying, “Here are 10 reasons to vote Conservative,” and not one of them is about climate change. We find out that Conservative candidates have not changed; they do not believe in man-made climate change. So the truth is that we have a whole range of stunts but an unchanged Conservative party, on this issue and every other issue at this general election.
I live in an area with a Labour MP who has one of the smallest majorities about. He has already call me a denier in writing (TonyN has seen the email) so he will not get my vote. I happen to believe that the malaise that has delivered AGW and Climate change is the same malaise that is preventing good government. However getting any meaningful discussion on this subject is next to impossible.
However I did get 1 hour on Good Friday from one of the other candidates for our constituency, in fact the one most likely to win the seat, and I found myself agreeing with much of what they said. But, all of what they say presupposes they sort out the malaise we are in with politics and our beliefs in fluff over fact.
I put this to them and tried to discuss climate change and wind power in particular as our area has its very own wind turbine and in a recent poll the community voted by and overwhelming margin to embrace 50/50 on renewable power. (Only 1000 or so voted and it appears to me this was the activist community and the poll was then closed)
What struck me in this part of the discussion was the complete unwillingness to engage with the subject. The candidate was very skilled at deflecting everything I said regarding climate change onto another subject. The sense they wanted me to get was first we do what it takes to win and then we fix, and in the meantime we don’t discuses this poison.
I pointed out that this was at the very crux of the electorates mistrust and why should I believe them over anyone else? There was no satisfactory answer to this, at least not for me.
One other observation; we discussed the local wind turbine in Nymphsfield and I quoted from the book The Wind Farm Scam by John Etherington. The points I was trying to make were dismissed out of hand and I was asked to believe that if the blades are turning then power is being produced. I would love to find the actual figures for this turbine because I think it would not be good. I think it has already been damaged by high winds as well.
So is winning power going to take precedence over all else? And do we have to wait until after the results to see if common sense is going to prevail? I just can not believe that all the parties when faced with the appalling economics will continue to blindly believe in AGW and wind power. Or is it as Plimer said when questioned at the Spectator debate last year; we won’t come to our senses until all the money has run out.
Peter Geany: “I just can not believe that all the parties when faced with the appalling economics will continue to blindly believe in AGW and wind power.” It’s a bit like a game of chicken, I think, no-one is going to blink first, especially before May 6th. Whoever is seen to falter or backslide will immediately come under fire from the opposition for not being serious about climate change. After the dust has settled, though, who knows…
Tony, re Cameron and the Tory initiative, Wikipedia has this about the Climate Change Act of 2008: “The opposition Conservative Party supported the concept of a bill, and proposed their own variation ahead of the Government’s. One of the key differences is that they were demanding annual carbon targets, and that the Committee on Climate Change should have an enhanced role, setting targets as well as advising governments.”
Unfortunately, the link that Wikipedia provides to Conservative website http://www.canihavethebillplease.co.uk doesn’t work; it seems that the site no longer exists. Friends of the Earth seem to have been instrumental in the first stages of the Bill, with their Big Ask campaign, which began in 2005. Following quite a bit of lobbying by FoE and also WWF, the first official sign that the government were going to introduce a climate change bill was their announcement in the Queen’s Speech of 15th November 2006 (according to FoE Europe here.) However, before the Queen’s Speech, apparently there was the unveiling of a Conservative climate bill. There’s a bit about this here, on the South Hams FoE website (dated 29/10/2006.) According to FoE campaigner Martyn Williams:
“I know some people will worry they have nicked our campaign … however, I think we should look on this positively. This is fantastic, showing there is yet more momentum behind the campaign. The competition rages on – Labour announcing a Bill in yesterday’s Guardian, Cameron bashing for a better one today. Sure it gets a bit hairy at times like this – but that is because we have elevated this issue, and our solution of a Bill, to the very top of politics – and it is always rough up there. It is an incredible achievement.
The other point to make is that the Bill the Conservatives have drafted and put on the website is very radical and an extremely good version of what we are calling for – with annual targets set on the basis of science by and independent body that will not even be whoilly appointed by Government (though there is a bit of a worry about international trading schemes). This is really important for the future debates on the Bill in Parliament – it means we can continue to count on them to back up a tough Bill.
So, any old lefties out there, please swallow your pride and use the Conservative’s website to email Tony and call for a Bill. Remember – as usual – the more calls he gets the better.”
Reading this, I was a little confused – did Labour or did the Tories announce their Bill first? It’s rather puzzling. The timeline seems to be that there was cross-party pressure for a bill, led by the environmental groups – then an announcement on 25th October 2006 by David Miliband (then the environment secretary) that there was going to be a bill, as per this Guardian article.
And then here’s David Cameron in the Independent, 27th October 2006. “On Wednesday, at Prime Minister’s Questions, Tony Blair failed to confirm that there would be a Climate Change Bill in his final Queen’s Speech on 15 November. Despite all the press briefings that suggested the contrary, he could not give a straight answer.”… “The Conservative Party is instead proposing a Climate Change Bill with binding, year-on-year targets on carbon emissions.”
So was the Climate Change Bill a Tory initiative first? Well, sort of… Cameron and the Tories appear to have drafted their own bill just before Labour announced there would be one, in the Queen’s Speech, but after David Miliband had already announced (or suggested? hinted?) there was something in the pipeline. It was a close run thing, in my opinion.
Congratulations to Alex for his patience and hard work sorting that out. The big question (which no journalist has asked, to my knowledge) is why the two big parties are in competition to see which one can be the first to steal the policies of a third party – the Greens – who only get 3% of the vote? It makes no political sense, and I suspect the answer lies outside the realms of politics in the realm of social psychology. Climate Resistance do a good job of exploring this area. I only wish their comments were a bit less intellectual some times, since I suspect a lot of peopl feel daunted.
I hope the kind of direct confrontation that Peter Geany did pays off. There’s only 600 MPs. If a significant number of them slowly discover that sceptics are not lunatics, that might be the first stage on the road to a real political debate. I bet it won’t be along party lines though, especially if there’s a hung parliament. The suffering to come from the delayed effects of the economic crisis will make eco-taxes a major issue. I don’t have a vote in England, but I’ll watch this with fascination. 2012 will be our turn, with a presidential and parliamentary elections in France, and a socialist/green coalition odds-on to win.
Thanks, Geoff! Just realised this afternoon that the Wayback Machine might have the defunct canihavethebillplease.co.uk web pages stored – and it does.You can see the Tories’ alternative climate bill here.
As to why the two largest parties have been trying to emulate the Greens, I think there’s enough scope for a fascinating and complex book here. On the Labour side, part of it would have been the Blairite move to shed the Old Labour image and replace it with something younger and trendier. On the Conservative side, the change is likely to have happened after they lost the 2005 election and Cameron replaced Howard. Each in their way saw Greenness as the wave of the future and a way to gain votes.
The Climate Resistance editors see it as evidence of the vacuity of modern politics. Part of it, as Peter Geany has mentioned, is that winning power is paramount; the party leaders (especially when in opposition) have seen the old core party values as not working any more and were probably told by focus groups and think tanks that the way to engage people (the youth vote in particular) was to embrace Green values and thus take advantage of the youthful idealism of the environmentalist movement.
Would one of you Brits help me out?
I’m reading that your election is too close to call. If you would……….please briefly describe the parties involved? Tories, Labour, Liberal Democrat…………
Tories: Conservative?
Labour: Leftists?
Liberal Democrat: Uber Leftist?
How does each party stand on environmental legislation? Is the election for prime minister and Parliament?
Brute:
Flanders & Swann (c1960) described the British system to an American audience thus: “We have two parties, Labour, or, as you would call them, socialists, and Conservative, or as you would call them – socialists”. Mrs Thatcher ended that by selling off everything she could to the private sector, and Blair followed suit. We now have three Democrat Parties, but the Conservatives have posher accents and the small third party, the Liberals, are more modern in a 1960s sort of way. Does that help?
Geoff,
Which is the least Socialist of the three and who is their candidate for Prime Minister?
Conservatives are the least socialist, followed by Liberals, followed by New Labour (which is still a member of the Socialist International, I believe). Their leader is David Cameron.
Your question made me think; I’m a convinced socialist, yet via the internet I have amical relations with Conservatives and Republicans. It’s far more difficult to have amical relations with those I disgree with on the subject of global warming. Yet political opinions are largely value-based, while the global warming question should be based entirely on objective scientific grounds. There’s something odd here.
Geoff,
I’m assuming that you’re British…….why not relocate to a truly Socialist nation such as Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela?
Not a sarcasm……..I’m simply curious….