Who's the Greenest..Yellow, Red or Blue?

I spy with my little eye something beginning with E. No, I’m not referring to illegal amphetamines, nor am I (completely) referring to the Environment, for once. I’m referring to that minor thing that’s happening tomorrow, that we’re all supposed to go and participate in – the election. Before you all groan like an Icelandic volcano and hit the close button on your browser, I should probably mention that the purpose of this post is to shed some light on the murky waters that are the different parties’ environmental agendas, heavily laden as they are with words like Future and Green, which nice as they are don’t tell us much about what each party is actually proposing. I’m also going to have a vague attempt at this Impartiality thing that the BBC in particular is so fond of (*cough* I Agree With Nick *cough*). So, bear with me...

On this, The Night Before The Fateful Election, which, like it or not, could actually drastically change the course of the future of Britain, most people’s assumptions are that of the three main parties, the Liberal Democrat’s manifesto is the greenest. This assumption seems to have been conjured up in recent weeks and passed around in pubs and coffee shops like an urban myth crossed with a ferocious STD. But are the Liberal Democrats really the greenest of the three? The first thing to bear in mind is that the Climate Change Act 2008, which sets a target for reducing Carbon Dioxide and other Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 80% of 1990 levels by 2050, is legally binding, regardless of who is sitting in 10 Downing Street - unless, that is, whoever is sitting in 10 Downing Street seeks to throw the Act out, in much the same way as the Conservatives want to throw out the ban on foxhunting. However, this is unlikely as whoever did this would not only make themselves extremely unpopular with a vast majority of the electorate at home but would also naff off the EU, UN and most other transnational organisations that the UK is a part of. So when you’re in that curtained booth tomorrow, and your pencil is hovering over your ballot paper, just remember that whoever you vote for, they are legally required to make at least some effort in the pursuit of that magic target of an 80% reduction in Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2050. However, it ain’t all about the crap coming out of our chimneys (believe it or not), and there are key differences between each party’s environmental agendas.

The Liberal Democrats’ manifesto states that they want to reduce carbon emissions in the UK by over 40% of 1990 levels by 2020. This statement worries me for three reasons. Firstly, it refers only to Carbon emissions, not Greenhouse Gas emissions. I know this is only a tiny point but it is worth considering nonetheless. Secondly, this target is in fact also part of the Climate Change Act 2008, as a “carbon budget”, so the Liberal Democrats can shout this one from the rooftops all they want but they’d only be doing what they are legally required to do. Thirdly, the Lib Dem’s manifesto goes on to trumpet a target for 40% of UK electricity to come from “clean, non-carbon emitting sources” by 2020, “rising to 100% by 2050”. I really really hope the dear old Lib Dems haven’t got their targets mixed up, as they are incredibly similar. Just because 40% of our electricity is coming from non-carbon sources doesn’t mean that our carbon emissions will be reduced by 40%. Again, this is a small point, but worth asking questions about, as it is still a point. Of this 40%, the Lib Dems want to ensure that at least 75% comes from “marine, offshore sources”, rejecting a new generation of nuclear power stations (bit too optimistic? http://thenoisytree1.blogspot.com/2009/10/political-hot-air-part-2.html). This is where the Lib Dem’s manifesto gets interesting – they propose a £400 million investment in the refurbishment of old disused shipyards in the north of England and Scotland to manufacture offshore wind turbines and other marine renewable energy knickknacks. In areas that still experience extreme poverty since the decline of UK shipbuilding, the Lib Dems want to invest money to create green business and the green jobs, at a time when, at last count in February, 2.5 million people are unemployed (Office for National Statistics, February 2010). Ever since the beginning of the recession, the environmental lobby has been crying out for the government to invest more in creating green jobs and investing in green business. Let’s face it; if we’re going to reach our magic target by 2050, we’re going to need a few more wind turbines. What better time to start investing in green business to encourage the creation of sustainable, long-term green jobs to create the green infrastructure the UK is lacking than in the middle of a recession?

Another interesting part of the Lib Dem’s environmental agenda is their intention to turn our transport system completely on its head, and shake it up and down until reduced emissions figures start falling out of its pockets. They propose a £140 million bus scrappage scheme, to help bus companies replace old polluting buses with newer, cleaner, more energy efficient ones, a scheme which, they argue, will also create green jobs (until, presumably, every dirty old bus in the country has been replaced). Also proposed is a UK Infrastructure Bank, a.k.a. the Money Tree (investment source unknown) whose sole purpose, it seems, would be to bankroll the greening of our national infrastructure, including the creation of high-speed rail, investment in local rail improvements including the reopening of closed lines and adding extra track. I live across the road from a recently re-opened railway track and, irony of ironies, it seems to be used mostly for transporting coal to a coal-fired power station up the road. Needless to say I curse the reopening of said railway track nightly, whenever I get woken up by what seems to be an earthquake but always turns out to be a particularly heavily-laden coal train. Anyway. The Lib Dems also propose to overhaul Network Rail to put passenger interests first, bring it under the Freedom of Information Act and refund 1/3 of the price of your rail ticket if you’re forced to get a replacement bus. As excited as I am about the prospect of bankrupting Network Rail, I seriously wonder whether these measures will actually bring any long-term benefit in terms of the future of the railway network, or whether they’re just crowd-pleasing platitudes shoved into the manifesto to win votes. The Lib Dems also propose to promote safer cycling and pedestrian routes in local transport plans, give councils greater powers to regulate bus services according to community needs, and replace the Air Passenger Duty with a Per Plane Duty, which would capture taxes from freight planes as well as passenger planes (warning: this may increase the price of your coconuts). However, considering the need to save cyclists and pedestrians from White Van Men and other nutcases in tin cans, the need to not cut off small communities from the outside world just because the only people who catch the bus from them are pensioners off to the nearest post office on a Thursday and the need to Do Anything to regulate the aviation industry, these can all only be good things, so long as they are all actually carried out, and not just crowd-pleasing vote-winners.

The Labour Party, in power, has a good track record on Getting Things Done to protect the environment. The Climate Change Act 2008 is, after all, their baby, and I’ll think most people in the country will now agree that their number of bins and the amount of effort required in the disposal of waste has increased by at least two-thirds since 1997. I have been reading too many manifestos. Anyway, the Labour party are proposing exactly the same as the Lib Dems on certain issues. For example, they too trumpet the 40% low-carbon electricity by 2020 target as if it’s not exactly what they are required to do by law – their own law, but still. One difference here is that the Labour Party are in favour of getting at least some of this low-carbon electricity from nuclear power. This either makes the Lib Dem’s energy policy look very optimistic or the Labour Party’s policy a quick fix, depending which side of the fence you sit on in the Great Nuclear Debate. As I’ve said before on here, it seems pretty optimistic to say that we can reduce our emissions by 80% by 2050 without nuclear power – but if it can be done, I’m all for it. Big If there, though.

Also like the Lib Dems, Labour are also proposing the overnight creation of a Money Tree, this time called the Green Investment Bank, to bankroll the greening of Britain’s infrastructure. One important difference between the two parties here, though, is that Labour do not go into any detail about how this bank will be used – the kind of projects it might finance, the expected outcome of such projects, and how these projects will help in the transition to a green economy. This point may be academic since we are talking about a Money Tree after all which I doubt will ever actually exist but it does show that the Lib Dems are at least prepared to stick their necks out to make firm detailed promises rather than rely on spin doctors to sell nice sounding yet vague platitudes to the general public. One promise the Labour Part do go into detail on is that they will create 400,000 new Green Jobs by 2015, no more, no less. One big detail left out of this promise is the hows, whys and wherefores. Presumably, Labour are simply going to change the job title of every bin man in the country to Green Waste Co-ordinator on 31st December 2014. With their track record on broken promises, and, let’s face it, it is a hell of a track record, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Another policy that Labour champion in their manifesto is the introduction of a “Pay As You Save” scheme, in which householders can improve the energy efficiency of their home, by, for example, insulating their loft or buying a more efficient boiler, and pay for these improvements with the savings said improvements will have on household energy bills. This is a clever policy, as most of us have currently only just scraped our jaws off the floor after receiving our gas bills for the coldest winter since 1978, and are somewhat receptive to the idea of savings on fuel bills. The Lib Dems propose something similar; however, again the Lib Dems do not try and sell an idea, or a dream, but make us a detailed promise – a “home energy improvement package” of up to £10,000 per home, also paid for by the savings we’d have from lower energy bills, and a one-year “Eco-Cash back” scheme, which would give £400 to homeowners if they installed a new boiler or double glazing.

But that’s it. Labour’s environmental policies do not even touch on transport – it’s worth remembering that this is the government that wants to keep the aviation industry in this country growing even though to do so would mean that the rest of the economy would have to cut emissions by 90% by 2050. There are no solid promises in relation to the railway network, although we do know that a high-speed rail line has been proposed between London and Birmingham. There is a lot of talk in their manifesto about supporting the rural economy – but no details on how this would be done. The improvements to both the rail and bus network that the Lib Dems propose would have a knock-on positive effect on the rural economy, provided, of course, that these schemes branched out even into the most rural areas in the country, as it is common sense that a business will have a better chance of surviving if more people can actually travel to it. The one saving grace the Labour Party have on environmental issues is a man. That man is Ed Miliband. One day he will wear a green Superman suit, fly up into the atmosphere for a day and return having Fixed The Hole in the Ozone Layer, and even the editor of the Daily Telegraph will kneel before him and weep. Maybe not...but seriously, if there is one person in the House of Commons more passionate about the environment than Ed Miliband, they are yet to be found. However, one person does not make a party, and it’s the rest of them that really worry me.

The Conservatives' environmental agenda is even starker and even more packed with pretty adverbs and adjectives than Labour’s. Two pages into the chapter on the environment in their manifesto, and all you’ll have read is about Labour’s supposed failure to act on environmental issues and about the environmental sustainability of Friedberg in Germany. That’s really nice that they’re doing so well, but we’re in Britain, not Germany (although there is a very nice page-length picture). Three pages in, and all you’ll have been promised is that the Conservatives will also make some sort of legally-required effort to reach the magic legally-binding target of an 80% cut in emissions by 2050. Lalalala, haven’t I heard this somewhere before. The Conservatives, like Labour, are in favour of nuclear power, providing they “receive no public subsidy”, which is as good as saying they are not in favour of nuclear power because there is no way on this earth that an energy company is going to completely foot the humungous bill of building a new nuclear power station from scratch. The Conservatives, like the Lib Dems, also see the future in marine renewable energy, and intend to build at least two “Marine Energy Parks”, although I’m not sure why they think making their energy intentions sound like a new attraction area at Alton Towers is going to win them votes. There is a vague reference to allowing community renewable energy projects keep the “additional business rates” they produce for 6 years, although this seems more like a throwaway gesture towards micro-generation rather than a groundbreaking initiative, and scarily there is also a reference towards four new coal-fired power stations, although these will apparently be fitted with carbon capture and storage technology.

The Conservatives, like both Labour and the Lib Dems, have also picked up on this idea of getting people to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. They, however, are only offering up to £6,500 for every home, which seems paltry compared to the Lib Dem’s offer of £10,000. However considering both of these promises end with the householder having to foot the bill, oh, sorry, “pay with savings made from reduced energy bills”, the Conservative deal at least means you’d owe the government less money. However, the Lib Dems’ promise may mean the difference between double glazing and a new boiler or just double glazing under the Conservative’s promise. There really isn’t much between the two; however, there is a world of difference between these promises and Labour’s vague, figureless niceties.

The Conservatives’ other environmental policies include reducing litter, making the governance of National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty more accountable to local communities, launching a national tree-planting campaign, press for the reform the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy at EU level, reforming the water industry (once again, no mention of how), improving flood defences, taking a dim view of new housing developments on flood plains, tackling bovine tuberculosis through “badger control” (watch out for those badger traps when you take your dog for a walk, then) and reducing the regulation and inspection of farms. The general, overwhelming impression received from reading the Conservative Party’s manifesto is that they seem to be getting the idea of protecting the Environment confused with the idea of protecting farmers. I am all for protecting rural livelihoods and supporting farmers who understand the importance of the environment and how it works as a system, and providing them with incentives to improve the environmental sustainability of their businesses. However it is worth remembering that farmers are essentially businessmen and will always do what is in their businesses’ best interests; if this means using cheap but environmentally degrading pesticides which reduce biodiversity, they will; if this means removing habitats such as hedgerows to create bigger fields which are easier to plant and harvest, they will; if this means opting for a diesel generator rather than a wind turbine, they will. Do not be fooled by the person who wears a green hat, it’s just a hat.

I realise I risk being sued by Alex Salmond for not including the environmental agendas of every other political party that resides within these Isles, however I figure by now if you’ve got this far you’ve had enough already, and most people are probably only going to vote one of three ways tomorrow anyway. When it comes to the environment, there is not a lot of difference between the three main parties. All are promising similar targets and incentives. Of the three, the Lib Dem’s environmental policy is certainly the most detailed and the most comprehensive. Interestingly enough, the Lib Dem’s environmental policy is not restricted to its one chapter in the Lib Dem’s manifesto, but green, environmentally-friendly policies that crop up in other chapters are highlighted as being so. Whilst this risks looking sloppy, as if whoever wrote the manifesto couldn’t be bothered to come up with one solid environmental agenda but just simply flipped through and highlighted policies which could be construed as being green, it in fact comes across as an understanding that the environment impacts both on society and the economy, and therefore has a role to play in these areas too; it screams of an integrated approach to the environment, a realisation that every area of our lives and our country could be improved to become more environmentally-friendly. Compared with Labour’s pretty sounding vagueness and lack of detail, and the Conservative’s confusion of the environment and farming, this approach certainly seems to be the most realistic and workable, however it doesn’t stop the Lib Dem’s promises sounding extremely optimistic at best. My advice? If you really want a party in government who is utterly obsessed with protecting the environment, who will genuinely deliver a more environmentally friendly economy and society, who will spout nothing but green policies – vote for the Green Party. Maybe that’ll make the others sit up straight.

xx