Michael Meacher - Labour's Future

Along with everyone else, I strongly welcome the Bill.

The latest figures show that greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by about 18 per cent. since 1990, although carbon dioxide emissions have marginally increased in several years during the last decade. There are two important caveats: first, that—as many people have said, and as the Prime Minister acknowledged in a speech on 19 November last year—the reduction required by 2050 must be at least 80 per cent. rather than 60 per cent. if there is to be headroom for developing countries to expand their economies while keeping within the overall global 2° C increase limit, which scientists say should not be exceeded without risk to the planet.

On that basis, I draw the sobering conclusion that an 80 per cent. reduction by 2050 requires an annual reduction in emissions of at least almost twice the rate of the past two decades.

The second caveat is that—as, again, many have said—the Bill ignores the UK’s share of international aviation emissions, which Department of Trade and Industry figures show already account for 12.5 per cent., or one eighth, of the total UK impact on global warming. Indeed, I regret to have to say that because the Government are proposing to triple airport capacity, the Environmental Audit Committee calculates that by 2050 UK aviation emissions—let alone UK shipping emissions—might amount to almost half of all UK emissions.

In introducing the Bill, my hon. Friend the Minister questioned the practicalities of including that data. I say to him that it would be entirely practical to include international aviation emissions in the Bill: the UK already reports on them regularly under the Kyoto protocol, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has figures dating back to 1970 on how much fuel has been taken on board at UK airports.

However—and this is where I disagree with some Members’ contributions—even if aviation emissions are included in the Bill, another loophole still needs to be closed. At present, the Bill allows 100 per cent. of emission reduction targets to be met by buying carbon credits from abroad rather than by reducing emissions in the UK. I am in no way against using genuine carbon credits that have been earned abroad promoting clean development in other countries, but this is a question of balance, and there are two relevant arguments.

One is that, unfortunately, the purchase of carbon credits overseas is sometimes open to highly dubious manipulation over the vexed issues of additionality and baselines; they are complex and can easily be manipulated, and there is clear evidence of considerable abuse.

The second argument, which is the clincher, is that we will succeed in stopping climate change, or the worst affects of it, given the stage we have now reached, only if we in the west, who are primarily responsible for it as a result of our industrialisation over the past two centuries, can persuade developing countries—largely China and India, which alone have two fifths of the world’s population—that we are serious about tackling climate change.

Buying all our credits from abroad simply will not persuade those countries that we are serious if at the same time we are taking an unsustainable path in our own country. That will produce only cynicism and resistance.
The fact is that the rich countries, with approximately 18 per cent. of the world’s population, are responsible for 54 per cent. of global emissions—three times our due share.

Until that is dealt with, we will simply not get international co-operation, without which the entire climate change problem cannot be solved. We are 1 per cent. of the world population and account for 2 per cent. of global emissions. Even with Europe, we are a small part of the picture. This has to be global, and we have to persuade the rest of the world that we are deadly serious about tackling the problem.

We should in this Bill impose a reasonable limiting cap on the buying of carbon credits abroad to meet UK emission targets. Indeed, that was precisely one of the caveats that led a United Nations human development report issued in the last year to say:

“If the rest of the developed world followed the pathway envisaged in the United Kingdom’s Climate Change Bill, dangerous climate change would be inevitable.”

That is a very sobering reminder. This is a good Bill, but it is certainly not ambitious enough.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Nigel Lawson, the former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer under Thatcher, never known for modesty, has taken it upon himself to write what he sees as the definitive tract in denial of climate change. Despite the polemics, it is well enough documented to be worth taking him on.

He rightly rejects the easy assumption that every major catastrophe, like Hurricane Katrina, is simply due to climate change. It is more complex than that, and whilst global warming may make such events more likely, other factors may well play a significant role. He is right that the science of the immense inter-connectedness of climatic phenomena, both within the Earth’s atmosphere as well as solar activity and cosmic rays, still has many uncertainties, and that disentangling the natural variability of the climate which has always existed from that which is new and man-made is fraught with difficulty.

He is right too to mock at some of the solutions that have been all too readily peddled. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme, so favoured by the marketers, has, as he admits, turned out to be a gigantic scam allowing businesses to invent a host of devices to cream off billions of pounds from making imaginary carbon reductions. He is right that the current stampede into biofuels is hugely counter-productive both in leading to the destruction of rain-forests and in competing for land with food crops, thus forcing up world food prices. And he is right too that carbon offsets, so beloved of today’s political and business jet-setting classes, are no better than the sale of indulgences by the mediaeval church which allowed the sinner to go on sinning so long as he paid the going price for it.

But Lawson wants to go further than tilting his lance at the sillier eccentricities of what he sees as the climate change establishment. He wants to demolish the entire infrastructure of climate change theory. But here his arguments are badly flawed.

His attack centres on three main contentions. First he argues that greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere do not automatically translate into rising average global temperatures, since there was a pause in the latter between 1940-1975 and again between 2001-2007, and therefore the basic theory fails. However, what he neglects is the much bigger picture provided by the Antarctica Vostok Station’s deep drilling which has found that carbon dioxide and methane, the two main greenhouse gases, rose and fell in near-lockstep with average global temperatures over the last half-million years. Thus the basic theory holds, even if the factors that cause short intermittent fluctuations are not yet fully understood.

Second, he contends that even on the most pessimistic economic scenario – that global warming will cut world GDP by 5% by 2100 – people will still be greatly better off by then and global warming will reduce that only very slightly per person, so we shouldn’t be too bothered about it. But averaging it out across the planet gives a very false impression. Whilst most people may be not greatly affected, hundreds of millions of others may die. It’s like saying that the Asian flu pandemic of 1918 may have killed 40 millions and the Second World War 60 millions, but when the global population was 2 billion, we can live with that because world economic growth per capita was only slightly interrupted. Not an argument that will I think appeal to most people, especially when we cannot tell in advance who will get through in a much more dangerous world and who will die.

His third contention is that the authoritative Stern Review, published last year, understates the economic costs of taking early action now to head off a potential future global catastrophe and overstates the benefits for future generations. He may well be right that Stern has taken too low a discount rate for his calculations, but in one important sense Stern may actually be underestimating future climatic and economic costs. This is because global climate change is not a linear process where warming grows smoothly and proportionately, but rather is beset by feedback mechanisms which abruptly, and maybe uncontrollably, magnify the climatic change with unpredictable consequences. Scientists are still uncertain whether some of the known mass extinctions in the Earth’s history of the last half-billion years may have happened for these reasons. Such mechanisms might include the melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice-sheets, the die-back of the world’s rainforests, and the mass release of methane hydrates from the ocean seabed.

When we may still be only in the early stages of climate change with very much worse to come and when the delay in the dissipation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may take centuries, a precautionary policy is the only sensible course. That should include switching out of fossil fuels into renewable sources of energy at the fastest practicable pace, a high carbon price to incentivise decarbonisation, and carbon capture and storage when developing countries insist on large-scale coal-burning.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Memories of the oil tanker drivers' strike in September 2000 remain very poignant for having brought the country so close to breakdown. But it had another disastrous effect too. It led to the ignominious despatch of the fuel duty escalator, the Government's only effective instrument for discouraging use of the car where alternatives were available. Since then cars have become the fastest rising cause of UK greenhouse gas emissions – now 38 million tons a year – and look set to go much higher as road traffic continues to grow by 2% a year.

There is no policy in place to contain, let alone reverse, this trend. It is true that train and bus use has increased, but this is unlikely to have a decisive impact on car use when train and bus fares continue to rise strongly while the average annual costs of motoring are actually falling in real terms. It is also true that a car tax differential has been introduced between small-engine cars and gas guzzlers, though at the last Budget the charge for SUVs was increased by a footling £1.73 a week which as a disincentive for owning a £25,000 vehicle is risible.

So is the Government's goal to cut emissions by 60% by 2050, about to be made a statutory target in the Climate Change Bill published on 12 November, doomed when the fastest rising source of those emissions is still being allowed to rise uncontrollably? Not necessarily. The obvious way out of the car impasse is to incentivise a switch away from the petrol-driven internal combustion engine to an electric or hydrogen fuel cell car.

It has been well understood since the early 1990s that widespread adoption of plug-in electric drive technology could be practical since most cars on the road could be replaced by plug-in electric cars having equivalent performance and amenities to today's fuel-powered cars, without having to build additional generation and transmission infrastructure. The only barrier to implementation at that time was the lack of safe and affordable high-power batteries with a vehicle lifetime service rating. However, as a result of materials innovations in the laboratory, high-power long-life batteries that recharge in 10 minutes are now being manufactured in the US which can power both electric plug-in vehicles and plug-in hybrids.

Several models are now coming off the production line. A Canadian company in Ontario has produced a no-holds-barred all-electric, five-passenger sports utility truck with a 130 mile range that cruises at motorway speeds with the air conditioner running. Phoenix Motors has announced it is about to introduce a family version SUV with an extended range and a 0-60 performance in less than 10 seconds. Moreover the electricity costs will be less than a third, maybe a fifth, of a conventional petrol-driven equivalent. More striking still, the maintenance costs of battery electric vehicles are only a quarter of even the most durable internal combustion configurations.

The reason is that electric engines are much simpler. They need no routine oil and oil filter changes. They require no muffler, no oil pump, no water pump, no radiator, no transmission, no spark plugs, and no catalytic converter. By comparison the petrol-driven car is a noisy, heat-blasting, pollution-spewing machine with far too many moving parts. And electric cars can compete not only in comfort and convenience, but also in speed (sadly, a necessity to achieve a mass market). The electric Tesla Roadster has a giant lithium-ion battery pack which gives it the power to hit 60 in just 4 seconds, to run 250 miles without a recharge, and to charge rapidly at its home charging base. The company even claims energy costs as low as a few pennies per mile.

So why haven't electric cars taken the market by storm? There are two basic reasons – cost and lack of Government support, and (more insidiously) resistance by the oil industry. In 1996 the California Air Quality board required car manufacturers to offer electric cars for sale as part of an effort to reduce air pollution. The big carmakers began to produce electric cars in very small numbers which proved wildly popular because they were fast, clean, quiet and sporty. The carmakers then sued the state of California to have this requirement repealed, and the Federal Government joined this lawsuit on their side – inexplicable until one recalls how close are the Bush ties to the oil industry and that his former chief of staff, Andrew Card, was previously a General Motors executive. The US Government rapidly won and all carmakers stopped producing electric cars. Not only that, they then demanded that those who had bought the cars under lease should return them, and even took legal action to recover some. They then shredded them for scrap.

Yet the reality remains that electric cars are much more energy efficient because the powering system is much lighter, and also much safer than petrol-driven cars where car accidents regularly cause a large number of deaths each year from burning fuel or terrible burn injuries. Petrol-driven cars need imported crude oil or, as the oil gradually runs out over the next 40 years or becomes prohibitively expensive, oil extracted from coal or possibly shale, but this again is very expensive and consumes huge amounts of energy. By contrast, electric cars may be charged from any power source, including renewable energy like hydroelectric, solar or wind.

So why doesn't it happen? The era of the electric car will not prevail till Government, in defiance of the oil industry, forces carmakers to produce them. Government should start by requiring that, say, half the cars and light trucks bought by national and local government and State agencies are electric powered. They could also require that an equal number be produced for sale to the public at the same price. Once this production line begins, it should unleash a huge demand for electric cars and as the mass market takes off the high current price would rapidly tumble. This could offer a breathtaking advance not only in tackling climate change – an end to all CO2 emissions from cars – but a huge gain too in safer and more efficient consumer transport.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On 9 December, I attended a mass rally in Grosvenor Square to call attention to the threat that climate change presents to us today. It was great to see 5,000 people there, marching to highlight the biggest single threat facing the planet at the time of world conference now taking place at Bali, demanding much tougher action both here in the UK and abroad.

We are making progress. Now that Australia has removed John Howard from office and ratified the Kyoto Protocol, we must hope that the US does the same. The US, with only 5% of the world population, is causing 25% of global warming damage. As the Bush presidency comes to an end, the US should only elect a president who is fully committed to international action to stop climate change, and to take the lead in making necessary and drastic cuts in carbon emissions.

Even Bush’s climate change guru, James Hansen, has admitted that we have at most 10 years to make the drastic cuts necessary to head off the worst effects of climate change.

Yet global emissions have actually risen since Kyoto, and that is why we must cut 50% of current carbon emissions by 2030, and move to cut 80% (or even 90%) cuts by 2050.

Emissions are still rising fast across the world because only 30 countries have committed themselves to making carbon emission cuts in the Kyoto Protocol, not the other 150 which include China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico. But they’ve made clear they are only prepared to cut their emissions if we rich countries take the lead, because we caused the problem and should fix it first – and they’re right.

Our second demand to the UK, EU, and the rest is – show some real leadership.

Rhetoric is not enough – we need a lot more action.

So today, we need to demand the following from the British government:

1. Our carbon emissions in the UK have actually risen since 1997, not fallen. There is no sense in setting ever tougher targets for 50 years if we haven’t made any significant cuts to our carbon emissions in the last 10 years. If we expect developing countries to cut their emissions, we’ve got to cut ours first – and massively.
2. Our record on renewable energy is pathetic. The rest of the EU regenerates 15-25% of its electricity from renewable energy, Scandinavia 35-50%. The UK, as an offshore island, has more windpower capacity than the rest of Europe put together. We need to learn how to take full advantage of these of offshore winds, and significantly lessen our dependence on other forms of carbon-based energies.
3. We need a Climate Change Bill (which incidentally heeds annual targets, not a leisurely five-year review) that is not much use if at the same time the Government approves a third runway at Heathrow, commits to triple airport capacity by 2030, begins a huge road construction programme, or annexes 1 million square acres of seabed off Antarctica in order to pre-empt the world’s last repositories of oil.
4. And another thing – if Gordon Brown is as much in favour of renewable energy as he claimed on 19 November, why is he undermining renewable energies by promoting nuclear energy, which is more costly, more dangerous, and leaves behind vast piles of unsafe, toxic materials which lasts for hundreds of thousands of years?

And if we are to make real progress in combating climate change:

• Air travel and shipping emissions must be included in both UK and international carbon targets
• The top 5,000 companies must report every year on how they are bringing down carbon emissions with penalties for those who fall short
• Household carbon allowances must be established so that every family in the country reduces their carbon emissions year by year
• The creation of an international programme to support developing countries to halt deforestation completely

Posted by Michael Meacher at 05:14 PM | Permalink

The Planning Bill, up for second reading in Parliament today, gives business exactly what it wants – de-regulation of the current planning system in order to prioritise economic growth over environmental, social and democratic objectives.

The Bill sets out that new National Planning Statements will be drawn up for an array of major developments – nuclear power and nuclear waste facilities, coal-fired power stations, airport expansions, major road schemes, and large waste incinerators. These Statements will pre-determine such issues as the need for, the safety of, and even the location of some projects, and will have more weight than any other statement of national, regional or local policy.

Then a new body, the Infrastructure Planning Commission, will decide on major project proposals in accordance with the National Policy Statements. The decisions of this new quango will be final, with Ministers no longer able to take decisions in this area. In other words, it removes all direct democratic accountability.

The public will also lose the right to be heard and to cross-examine witnesses in public inquiries. Instead, the Commission will decide whether individuals can give evidence, and in what way. But no questions can be asked about whether the project is really needed, or whether it’s safe, or where it’s located. Most people would describe this process as a complete bureaucratic stitch-up.

Even more extraordinarily, it is proposed in the case of major infrastructure projects that the community consultation will be carried out by the developer himself! As though the promoter of the development will seriously examine alternative development options!

The removal of the needs test will hugely favour supermarkets like Tesco and Wall Mart in getting more out-of-town supermarkets. If we didn’t already pick up the Government’s biases over the planning system, the Planning White Paper says that it aims to “promote competition and consumer choice, and not unduly or disproportionately constrain the market”.

The Government justifies all this by saying it is necessary to make it easier to get these major infrastructure projects through in order to tackle climate change. But the opposite is true, because these are precisely the projects that increase carbon emissions and increase pollution in the first place. The real way to tackle climate change is a massive increase in renewables and decentralised low/no carbon energy systems while phasing out fossil fuels.

These ‘reforms’ are fundamentally anti-democratic because they remove the need for the developer to consult and to gain consent. The public will not even have a right to be heard when far-reaching policy is being drawn up in the National Policy Statements, let alone when decisions are made on the ground. There will be no trust in this new process if people’s involvement is at the discretion of unaccountable bodies with (appropriately) ugly titles like the Infrastructure Planning Commission.

Ominously, this introduction of faceless grey bureaucratic quangos is paralleled by a similar device in the Government’s recent Housing Bill – OFTENANT, who will replace elected local Councils in setting criteria for allocating tenancies, determining rents, deciding how far housing need will be met and in what way, dealing with tenants’ complaints, and even regulating anti-social behaviour on housing estates.

Doing deals behind-the-scenes with the vested interests involved in big infrastructure projects is yet another example of this Government giving priority to corporate power over the public interest. That’s what we would expect of the Tories, not of Labour.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 01:22 PM | Permalink

Gordon Brown’s renewables conversion on the Damascene road to climate change is extremely welcome, but like all miracles needs to be examined very closely. It is magnificent that the bar for green achievement has now been so dramatically raised, but until plausible mechanisms to get there are set out, the claims ring not a little hollow.

Britain has long been committed to a 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 compared to the baseline 1990, as demanded by the Commission on Environmental Protection in the 1990s. In the base year 1990 Britain’s carbon emissions were about 160 million tonnes CO² (mtC), so by 2050 they have to be down to some 64 mtC, i.e. a reduction of 1.6 mtC every year for 60 years. So in the ten years since 1997 they should have been cut by about 16 mtC. In fact, initially over that period carbon emissions were cut significantly, but then over the latter part of the period they rose substantially, with a net increase over the whole decade of 2%. If then over the last 10 years emissions have gone up by 3 mtC rather than down by 16, what assurances are there that in the next 43 years emissions will be cut by 2 mtC every year from now on to meet the 60% reduction target by 2050?

To Gordon Brown’s credit he is now going further and committing to an 80% cut by 2020, which is indeed what the world’s scientists are now saying is necessary. But that only sharpens the question still further. To meet that tougher target, how exactly are we going to cut by 2.7 mtC every year from now to 2050?

When it comes to Brown’s new targets on renewables, acclamation must give way to incredulity. At present, Britain generates just 4% of its electricity from renewable sources of energy. In most of the EU it’s 10-20%, and in Scandinavia it’s 30-50%. The PM is now committing the UK to meet the EU target of 20% of its energy (not just for electricity generation) from renewables by 2020. Since it is all primary energy that is being referred to (i.e. for space heating and transport), that would mean some 40% of our electricity must come from renewables. To paraphrase, c’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas l’ecologie. How precisely is a 10-fold increase in renewables to be achieved in the next 13 years?

What makes these objectives less than credible is that it is Gordon Brown himself who has blocked most of the mechanisms that might have delivered these targets. When the Government (I know because I was a Defra Minister at the time) was planning to put into statute a requirement on the top thousand companies in the UK to report annually on their emissions so that the public would know whether each year they were reducing them or not, Gordon Brown unceremoniously ditched the commitment in 2005 because at a CBI dinner just beforehand he wanted to flaunt his de-regulatory credentials. He also dropped in 2000 the fuel duty escalator which increased the price of petrol each year by more than the rate of inflation in order to encourage motorists to use their car less wherever they could because of the environmental damage involved. And it is Gordon Brown who has continued to provide huge subsidies year after year to the fossil fuel industries of oil, gas and coal which are the basic cause of the whole climate change problem.

The other oddity of this sudden spurt of greenery is that it sits uncomfortably alongside a raft of policies pulling in exactly the opposite direction. The Government is still committed to triple airport capacity in the UK by 2030 (and only yesterday announced a third runway at Heathrow) which with the huge number of extra flights entailed would make it virtually impossible to reach these ambitious new climate change targets. Gordon Brown is still committed to a massive nuclear energy revival which, given the enormous costs, would certainly squeeze out any sustained expansion of renewables. And the Government has continued to block measures which would give a major boost to the woefully low standards of energy efficiency in housing and other measures like the Merton Rule to expand the use of renewables in house construction.

So, Gordon, bully for you with your latest aspirations, but how exactly are you going to achieve them?

Posted by Michael Meacher at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some useful proposals – though the devil may lie in the detail, not yet revealed – but disappointing on the vision and no razzmatazz of new ideas for a new leader, largely because Gordon Brown has already been leading on the domestic policy agenda for the past ten years and now has nothing much new to say.

It’s good that after two decades of neglect of social housing amidst the triumphalist ideology of private ownership, the national scandal of housing need is now at least being noticed. Council waiting lists are now above 1 ½ million and there are over 100,000 homeless, yet only 100 Council homes were built last year (down from 13,000 a year at the end of the Thatcher era). The housing stock is only growing by some 185,000 a year at present, yet the number of new households being formed each year is about 220,000. We are still going backwards. Building an extra 40,000 homes a year, as the Government proposes, is clearly nowhere near enough to meet the yawning gap of housing need. And how many of the 40,000 will be social housing anyway? And why are local authorities still not being allowed to build more Council houses themselves if they wish, borrowing against the security of their own existing housing stock?

Changes to the planning system, as is proposed, might seem sensible when some planning decisions have clearly taken far too long. The 8 years spent on the Heathrow Terminal 5 decision is usually quoted here (though much of that was accounted for by the time spent on Ministers’ desks after the planning report was submitted). But today’s proposals are motivated by very different criteria. National Policy Statements will be drawn up which will enable an array of major developments – nuclear power and nuclear waste facilities, coal-fired power stations, airport expansions, major road schemes, and large waste incinerators – to be put through without the public having a say on whether they are needed or safe, or where they are to be located. This rather conflicts with Brown’s stated wish to bring more democracy into public decisions.

A Climate Change Bill is very welcome, but again its contents leave a lot to be desired. It promises a review of progress in cutting carbon emissions every 5 years which is far too lax when the UK is way off track to meet the Government’s objectives. Clearly annual targets, published and enforceable, are urgently needed. Moreover, air travel and shipping emissions are omitted, even though they are the fastest rising sources of emissions. Nor are mere targets sufficient anyway when other Government policies, notably a tripling of airport capacity by 2030, are diametrically opposed.

Democratisation has also been one of Gordon’s ostensible goals, which is also desperately needed. But it has to stretch a great deal further than simply giving Parliament a vote before the country goes to war – a concession which after the Iraq debacle would probably be inevitable anyway. Parliament needs real new power on a much broader front – electing Select Committee members rather than letting the Whips use the patronage to gain a wider acquiescence, ratifying (or not) Cabinet nominations made by the PM, approving (or not) the membership and terms of reference of Committees of Inquiry proposed by the PM, and setting up their own Parliamentary Commissions to investigate controversial issues (e.g. extraordinary rendition) when the Government refuses to do so. Nor can the idea of greater democracy cut much ice when the Government is still intending to pursue the ID cards folly and, even worse, extend the 28-days detention without charge in defiance of the 800 year old habeas corpus.

And what is not in the Queen’s Speech is perhaps even more important than what is. There’s nothing about redressing the centralisation of power which is such an indictment of the current state of Britain. There’s nothing about redressing the grotesque inequality of income and wealth – nor was there is in the Pre-Budget Report a month ago. And there’s nothing about restoring the ethos of public service which has taken such a battering under Blair – indeed it’s taking a further hit currently with the huge cutbacks in BBC funding which threaten public service broadcasting. Et tu, Gordon?

Posted by Michael Meacher at 11:22 AM | Permalink

You can see the other speeches from virtual marchers at: The Big Ask

Posted by Michael Meacher at 11:32 AM | Permalink

On 14th March of this year, Southwest Trains (SWT), who operate the busiest railway routes in the country, announced a £700 million dividend for its shareholders. SWT’s parent company, Stagecoach, is owned by Brian Souter. He netted a £1 million windfall.

On 20th March – just six days after the shareholders’ wealthy reward – SWT announced a new ticket rate for commuters travelling between 10am and 12pm. The price hike? 20%. Adding insult to considerable injury, those travelling into London after 12pm will pay a further 3% - that’s on top of the inflation-busting New Year rise of 5.4%.

The next day, on 21st March, Gordon Brown announced a rise in fuel duty of 2% in his final budget. So much for encouraging us to quit the car and take the train.

Whilst the railways remain in the hands of profit-hungry companies, it is impossible to make train travel an affordable option. Yet we all now realise that climate change poses a horrendous threat and that urgent action is needed. Politicians of all sides agree that the status quo is unacceptable, and that much has to be done.

David Cameron says he will put railways at the heart of his environmental policies. Quite what that means is anybody’s guess. Once again, Mr. Cameron grabs a headline without grabbing the initiative – he offers no coherent or plausible policy on the future of our railways.

Michael Meacher has a plan, and it involves putting both environmental and passenger concerns at the top of the agenda. We currently have one of the most expensive and least efficient railway services in western Europe. By taking the railways and train companies back into public control, Michael would allow the government – who currently pay higher subsidies to the railway industry than before privatisation – to make trains a pivotal part of an integrated green strategy.

Michael Meacher wants to increase investment in the railway network, allowing more trains to operate on more routes. Ticket prices must come down. As soon as the railways are once again owned by the public, you remove the profit incentive – which is the key reason fares rise by such astronomical rates each year.

Our railways should not be dependent on a small group of people making huge sums of money at the expense of the millions of Britons who rely on trains, and who want to make a difference to the future of our planet by leaving their cars at home.

Posted by Eddie at 02:43 PM | Permalink

From today's Times:

Politics is in a curiously disorientated state in Britain today. On one side, old-style Toryism was voted out in 1997, and has now been replaced by a soft veneer of environmentalism and family-centredness that contrasts sharply with the excesses of private equity capitalism. On the other, the persistent shifting to the right under new Labour has now blown itself out, as the polls indicate, leaving a large segment of political space occupied by mainstream Labour opinion and probably a majority of the electorate as a whole largely disenfranchised.

This key part of the spectrum urgently needs representation to give it fresh direction — not old Labour either, but a modern progressive politics addressing the big issues now being ducked and championing key groups now being marginalised.

First, we need a change of direction to heal the divisions that are increasingly straining the fabric of our society. The Government has made some progress in reducing poverty, but not nearly enough. Inequalities are actually increasing. The average pay of the chief executives of the top FTSE 100 companies is now £46,150 a week, 250 times the minimum wage and 500 times the state pension, while at the same time there are still 12.5 million people, including more than 2 million children, living in households below the Government’s poverty line. This matters because reducing inequality leads to less violence, better health, longer life expectancy, lower teenage birth rates and higher educational attainment.

We need a new approach to cutting crime if we genuinely believe in being as tough on the causes of crime as on crime itself. It’s not sensible to go on banging people up even faster than we can build new prisons without tackling much harder the causes of criminality, and putting much more emphasis on reducing recidivism. Despite unprecedented increase in the use of custody, reconviction rates have soared. The hardline policy isn’t working.

We must drastically reduce the prison population, confining it to violent and dangerous offenders. We should provide instead secure units in the community where lesser offenders are required to attend compulsory courses on anger control, money management and parenting, and also to receive education and skills training and treatment for drug addiction and mental health needs, and are made to do unpaid work to repay the community.

Probably the best crime reduction value for money comes from parenting programmes and youth inclusion panels, bringing together local services to focus support on 8 to 13-year-olds at highest risk. Of course there are increased costs involved in intensive rehabilitation, but if prison places and reoffending costs can be significantly reduced, there should be a substantial net saving in public expenditure.

We need too to arrest the overcentralisation of power in this country. Key decisions, such as the replacement of Trident and the restoration of nuclear energy, should not be taken without consultation of the Cabinet, Parliament and public opinion.

Indeed, the most direct way to win back public trust and reconnect with the electorate is for the Government to be seen as genuinely accountable, listening and being prepared to adjust in the face of strong public demand.

It also means Parliament reasserting its authority by taking the right to ratify (or not) nominations to the Cabinet made by the Prime Minister, by appointing committees of inquiry where the Government refuses to do so (as over rendition flights), by ending the Royal Prerogative whereby the Prime Minister can unilaterally declare war and authorise military action, and through its select committees tabling its own motions for debate and voting on the floor of the Commons. Giving the public the right to initiate legislation through referendums is another issue to explore.

We also need much more vigorously to tackle the greatest threat facing the world today: climate change. It must permeate every policy area of Government — not just energy, but transport, industry, building, agriculture, public expenditure and taxation, and foreign policy. It is not enough merely to talk of the end of oil dependence when our electricity generation from renewable energy is, at just 4 per cent, by far the lowest in Europe.

We need an overall plan to meet the scientists’ target of reducing carbon emissions by at least 60 per cent by 2050. It is a colossal challenge, but a win-win-win-win scenario. It will increase energy efficiency hugely, create large savings for industry and some of our poorest households, protect our economy against sudden destabilising external shocks and safeguard us from climate catastrophe.

Finally, we must stop being subservient to the US. We can’t go on being America’s glove puppet, as we have been over Iraq and Lebanon, and, most worryingly, Iran. We need a foreign policy that robustly reasserts our own essential British interests and our commitment to the UN. The first demonstration of that should be strong opposition to any potential US or Israeli attack on Iran, and insistence that the nuclear impasse must be resolved by negotiation or by UN sanctions, not by violence.

We should take the advice not of the US but of British military commanders on the spot in speeding up our troop withdrawal from Iraq. And we should push for a wider international peace conference for a joint settlement of interconnected Middle East issues that cannot be solved one by one. The latest reports of a US change of heart about talking to Iran and Syria make this now a serious possibility.

It is because I believe that radical new policies of this kind would reenergise politics in this country that I am standing for the leadership of the Labour Party.

www.michaelmeacher.info

Posted by Michael Meacher at 02:04 PM | Permalink

Michael's speech to the People's Assembly against the War, yesterday evening in Westminster.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 07:14 AM | Permalink

We are quite right to aim at global leadership over climate change, but we will only get it if we earn it. And at present we’re not. We have been at great risk of covering up our failure to reach even modest targets by taking on ever more ambitious ones, while kicking them ever further into the future. At the EU Summit in Brussels on Saturday the heads of government did exactly that – ratcheting up the targets for 2020 while failing to deliver the lesser targets for 2010.

The EU is way off track to meet its 8% cut in CO2 emissions by 2010. In the UK emissions have risen in 6 of the last 7 years, when they should have fallen by 12%. Air travel and car emissions continue to rise sharply. The UK target for electricity generation from renewables was 10% by 2010. We are currently at 4% and will be lucky to reach 6%, when the average for the original EU 15 is nearly 20%. Higher targets are fine, but without serious enforcement the plaudits are vacuous.

The test for the Climate Change Bill on Tuesday is clear. Does it have an explicit strategy to deliver 60% cuts by 2050, as the scientists require? What exactly are the mechanisms proposed to deliver this? Are they all enforceable? Will the Government set binding annual targets to achieve the cuts required, monitor progress and publish the results and bring in whatever changes or new mechanisms are necessary to keep Britain on track? Anything less is a cosmetic palliative in the war on Climate Change.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 11:05 AM | Permalink

Posted by Michael Meacher at 09:24 AM | Permalink

Getting agreement today to a binding 20% renewables target at the EU summit in Brussels is crucial. But the rhetoric has to be delivered. Britain already has a renewables target of 10% by 2010, but is failing to get anywhere near it.

While Germany, France, Italy and Spain generate 10-25% of their electricity from renewable sources of energy and Sweden and Denmark 25-35%, for Britain the figure is just 4%. This is pathetic, given that around Scotland and the North Sea, we have more wind power and wave and tidal power potential than any other country in Europe.

Kicking targets another decade into the future to conceal the failure to deliver in the shorter term is not good enough.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 10:06 AM | Permalink

Meacher: why Spectator readers should vote for me

A leadership election opens up, uniquely, the opportunity to debate and decide on the future course of a government. I am standing because I believe there are several areas of policy where a fundamental change of direction is now needed. And though Spectator readers may initially be sceptical about the relevance of my policies to them, I believe that if they read on with an open mind, they'll find much that they agree with. I'm sure they'll agree, for instance, that New Labour and Tory policies have become similar, almost overlapping, which means that politics has become increasingly fixated on personalities, as though a blanket consensus on policy had been achieved. This is ridiculous. Old-style Toryism was rejected in 1997, and now New Labour - the continuing moving-right show - has clearly faded. It's time, not for Old Labour either, but for a mainstream Labour approach - which may well represent majority opinion within the electorate but has been suppressed for over a decade - to be reasserted as a modern progressive politics with new solutions to today's profound problems.

Continue reading "From the Spectator (3 March 2007)" »

Posted by Michael Meacher at 10:09 AM | Permalink

(From the Independent)

Labour leadership contender answers your questions, such as 'Why not sell your flats to help fight against poverty?' & 'What's your guilty pleasure?'
Published: 05 March 2007

Are you a socialist? What does that mean today? MIKE WOODBRIDGE, Brighton

Yes, I am. A socialist believes that while the market has its proper place, the fundamental principles underpinning society should be equity, social justice, equality of opportunity, and democratic accountability. Even where the market is a dominant force, socialists believe it should be regulated to ensure high environmental, social and labour standards.

Why, as a socialist, do you own so many houses? GARY BROWNE, Glasgow

As I have regularly stated in the register of Members' interests, I own four flats. I have saved throughout my life, and put my savings into property. I don't think [that] is contrary to socialism.

Given your views on poverty, why not sell some of your houses and give the money to charity? Or are you just another hypocritical politician? V AHMAD, Birmingham

I already give a significant amount to charity . I agree there is an urgent need to build much more social, affordable housing but selling my flats which are already occupied would not contribute one iota to that.

Isn't it delusional of you to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership? MAURICE BURKE, Birmingham

No. There should be a contest because only an election enables us to debate the real policy issues. I also believe that members of the Labour Party should have the right to choose their own leaders. I believe, too, that as New Labour, of which Gordon Brown is perhaps the main architect, has moved continually ever further to the right, the mainstream majority of the party has been left disenfranchised and without a voice. It is not sensible to assume the results of any election before the electors have had a chance to deliver their opinion which may sometimes come as rather a shock to the chattering classes. Not too many people I guess expected David Cameron to come from behind and win the Tory Party leadership.

Don't you think Gordon offers Labour the best hope of winning the next election? VALERIE EVANS, Cardiff

Have you seen the last two polls? Both put the Tories 11 per cent ahead, and one poll found that if Gordon was leader, the Tories would be 13 per cent ahead.

I am a Labour supporter, but I despair that Gordon Brown has been such a coward over the war, talks nonsense on 'Britishness' and seems so in love with Rupert Murdoch that he will hand the next election to Cameron. Do you agree - and if not, which bits do you disagree with and why? DAVE FISCHER, Sheffield

Cameron has certainly, at this stage at least, improved the Tories' poll ratings, but not, I think, for the reasons you give.

A majority on the Labour left support John McDonnell and see your campaign as a spoiler which will only split the vote and stop a contest. Will you stand down if John has more nominations when Blair resigns? SUSAN PRESS, Calder Valley

There is no evidence whatever that a majority of people on the Labour Party left and the affiliated trade union movement support John McDonnell for leader. I have a great deal of respect for John, but I don't believe he can get the necessary 45 nominations, whereas I believe I can. I am not splitting the vote, but rather giving the centre-left the chance, to run a candidate who can pass the nominations threshold. But I do agree that whichever of the two of us has the larger number of nominations, the other should stand down when Tony Blair resigns.

Why not use that photo of you on Blackpool beach (very Daniel Craig) for your campaign posters? CONOR MURPHY, Reading

Good try. At least it shows I'm healthy.

Do you think Blair should stand down now?STEVE HARRISON, Bolton

The sooner he stands down, the better.

Why did you vote in favour of the invasion of Iraq?DEAN PALMER, Norwich

I made the biggest mistake of my political life when I supported the war, on the grounds that the Prime Minister repeatedly gave chapter and verse about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and assured us that if only we knew all the intelligence available to him, we would have no doubts about the necessity for this action. I still find it deeply disturbing for democracy that a prime minister can so massage and fabricate the evidence in order to push through a preconceived war plan.

Do you think Blair lied to his MPs and lied to the country over Iraq?JEFF TERRY, Dundee

I think the highly selective manipulation of such evidence as there was, together with the highly prejudicial use to which it was put, was deeply dishonest.

You claim you were misled that Saddam had a WMD programme. Yet you say the West has no right to tell Iran not to develop nuclear weapons. Aren't you being rather inconsistent over Iraq and Iran?JIM ROLAND, London NW11

No, these are two quite separate arguments. Yes, we were certainly misled over Saddam's alleged WMD programme. While we should try to prevent Iranian nuclear weapons by negotiation and UN sanctions, we cannot say that nuclear weapons are indispensable for our own security, and then say Iran does not need them for their own security, especially when Iran (unlike the West) is surrounded by seven states which are nuclear-armed and some very hostile.

Do you truly believe that the US government knew about 9/11 but failed to prevent it?CHRIS QUIGLEY, by email

Clearly the US government did not know the precise time and location of the al-Qa'ida attack, but equally clearly there was a great deal of intelligence beforehand which, for whatever reason, it seems that they did not follow up.

You have suggested that the US government knew about the 9/11 attacks (which is pretty obvious I reckon, but fair play to you nonetheless). How complicit do you believe the UK Government was in 7/7? PAUL HUGHES, by email

Not at all.

Do you also believe that the FBI shot John F Kennedy, that Princess Diana was murdered and the US government has covered up the landing of aliens?BEN TROTTER, Cirencester

No. Such allegations are cheap and rather silly.

What steps will you propose to counter global warming? DR GEORGE BLAIR, by email

We should rapidly increase our use of renewable sources of energy (windpower, solar, and micro-generation in people's homes). We should require the airline industry, like every other industry, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions each year. We should increase vehicle excise duty sharply for gas-guzzling cars and use the proceeds to subsidise bus and rail, and smaller-engine cars. We should give each family a carbon entitlement which then has to be reduced each year.

How often have you flown in the past 12 months? FIONA MILLS, Edinburgh

Not at all.

You criticise the 'Westminster bubble' but said you spent the last two months talking to MPs about your campaign. Does this not show you have the same disrespect for people's views as the rest of the Westminster bubble? MARSHA JANE THOMPSON, by email

I said that when people around the country come to vote, they may well take a quite different view of things from the inward-looking Westminster scene, and should be listened to. But I also extensively canvassed my colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party because they alone are the ones who make the nominations.

Why did it take you so long to announce your intention to stand for the Labour leadership when John McDonnell has been campaigning up and down the country for months?MAX MITCHELL, by email

I have been told that John McDonnell announced his candidature without consulting his colleagues. I thought it right first to consult extensively to confirm that my candidature would have the necessary range of support.

What are your guilty pleasures (apart from homeowning)?ALICE SHERWOOD, Tadworth

Wouldn't you like to know! Dropping childish comments in the waste paper basket is one of them.

You always look a bit boring. Are you? ROB JACKSON, by email

No. Why? Are you?

Posted by Michael Meacher at 12:28 PM | Permalink

Watch Michael on tonight's edition of Dispatches where, in the light of the recent deferment of the Climate Change Bill, he is interviewed by George Monbiot on the priority given to climate change within government and the importance of addressing ourselves to the need for a 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.

You can also watch online here but you will need to register/log in.

If you missed it, there are two ways to watch it again;
For insomniacs, the terrestrial repeat is on Channel 4 at 3.15am on Friday morning. It is also available on the Ch4 On demand serivce. Go to the 4OD website to register if you would like to rent (for 99p) the programme this way.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 05:11 PM | Permalink

From

There are three reasons why there should be an election for a new leader when Tony Blair finally goes. Only an election confers democratic legitimacy on the succession. Second, party members expect to have a choice about who should lead them. They have hardly been listened to for most of the last 13 years, and have every right to demand that their voice be listened to now. And third, there are major differences of view about the government's direction of travel which need to be understood, debated and voted on within the party. There are other, better alternatives.

New Labour has over-centralised power at the top, which has undermined democratic accountability at all levels. Its economy, driven exclusively by market forces, has played down intervention to secure a stronger manufacturing industry, a more balanced regional policy, and a lift out of its low pay, low skill, low productivity base. Its authoritarian civil society has eroded civil liberties across the board. Its deregulatory philosophy plays down environmental standards and labour rights.

Its indifference to, indeed embrace of, inequality -- "New Labour is relaxed about people getting filthy rich", as Peter Mandelson told us so charmingly -- has presided over a sharp increase in the gap between rich and poor. And its obsession with privatisation is leaching away the public service ideals which lie at the heart of a caring and committed society.

Because Labour and Tory policies are now so similar, politics has increasingly focused on personalities. But that is a fundamental misapprehension. A large part of the electorate on the centre-left, perhaps even a majority, has effectively been disenfranchised for the last three decades. Old-style Toryism was discarded by the voters in 1997, and now New Labour -- the continuing moving right show -- has clearly run its course. It's time, not for old Labour , but for a new implementation of core Labour values in a modern progressive politics addressing today's profound problems.

We need a new foreign policy which is based on fundamental British interests, not subservience to the US, particularly over the middle east. If our political status is to rise across the world, it is not sustainable to continue as America's glove puppet. We need a new social policy if the growing divisions within our society are to be healed. It is not sustainable for £9 billion of city bonuses to be doled out last year while 12.5 million people, a fifth of the population, remain in poverty.

We need a new penal policy if we are going to be genuinely as tough on the causes of crime as on crime itself. It is not sustainable to go on banging people up even faster than we can build prisons without trying to deal with the underlying causes of criminality and doing more to reduce recidivism. We need a new climate change and energy policy if we are not to become over-dependent on imported fossil fuels. It is not sustainable, let alone not legal, to go on fighting wars to grab control of the remaining reserves of Middle East oil when anyway the oil will soon run out.

So what should be done? To end the continuing horrendous carnage in Iraq, to complete our troop withdrawal and break the impasse over Palestine, we should use our political clout to initiate a wider international peace conference bringing together all the relevant actors for a joint settlement of the related middle east issues of contention which from experience cannot be resolved singly. That must include not only Iraq and Palestine within such a grand bargain, but above all a negotiated, not a military, settlement over Iran. If the US were to attack Iran, I would not put at risk a single British soldier or a single RAF pilot in support of such a crazed venture.

Domestically, the Unicef report marking Britain bottom of the table for children's experience shows how urgent it is to reverse the growing rich-poor divide. Less inequality leads to less violence, stronger community life, better health, longer life expectancy, lower teenage birth rates, as well as more social mobility and higher educational attainment. We should start by raising the national minimum wage (one of Labour's best achievements) quickly to £6 an hour, and then soon to £7 an hour. And recognising that wealth creation is not an individual but a team effort, we should move towards a system where there is no more than an acceptable ratio between top pay and bottom pay, so that pay rises at the top draw up the lower paid behind them too.

Globally we are at war against climate change. Business as usual, while relying on improved technology as a get-out card, is a fool's game. We need a profound change in every aspect of government and our way of life -- not just energy, but transport, industry, building, agriculture, public expenditure and taxation, and foreign policy, in order in every area to give absolute priority to combating climaten change. We need a crash programme, as we have done before in wartime, to develop renewable sources of energy, in which we are very well endowed, plus a massive programme to improve energy efficiency and energy conservation.

Peace, social justice, climate survival - those should be our top priorities. That is why the future lies with a centre-left agenda, and clearly there must be a centre-left candidate to lead this agenda forward who has the necessary nominations in the Parliamentary Labour Party to stand. I am fully confident I do have that necessary level of support, and that is why I am standing.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 03:39 PM | Permalink

Things have been hectic today, so much so that a planned video interview that was going to appear here has had to be put off until next week. As has been well documented, both on televison and radio as well as on a number of blogs, I declared today that I am standing for the leadership fo the Labour Party.

We need an election. We cannot stumble on without the issues being debated. We have seen inequality grow to levels higher than at any time since the 1930s. The world has become a less safe place in which to live. We are simply strolling without the necessary urgency along the path to controlling carbon emissions and dealing with climate change.

Elections have their own dynamic and the ballot could be 3-4 months away. Some of the coverage has predictably focused upon the issue of MP nominations. I am confident that I have the required supoport to be on the ballot. That's not an issue that can be settled until the nominations are actually made. Until then I intend to spend that time campainging hard to make sure the arguments - the alternatives to New Labour - are heard.

The BBC's James Landale seemed to be the only journalist who picked up on the real issues when he said on News 24 that the point of the campaign was to pick up the banner of the Labour left and wave it as loudly and visibly as possible. That's why taking the railways back into public ownership, rejecting renewal of Trident and the gross discrepancies between the highest paid and the lowest were issues I raised at the press conference this morning.

Crucially, he also said the interesting thing will be to see how these policies resonate with party members over the coming months.
Do they want to see Trident renewed? Most polls suggest otherwise, that people know there is no enemy against which they can be used, not terorrists, not rogue states.

Do they want to see the wage packets of the lowest pay to also rise when city bonuses are handed out? I think the answer is yes.

Do they want to see a massive investment in renewable energy technologies, cutting carbon emisisons and providing jobs in manufacturing and in research and development? Addressing global warming does not require wearing a hairshirt, it requires committment and innovation - and the rewards are huge.

If, as I believe, the centre-left is actually the mainstream, then these arguments should resonate loud and very clear. Only by putting them to the party can we see if that is the case. I think I have the policies, experience and expertise required for the job - now I want the party to have the opportunity to decide.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 08:03 PM | Permalink

Blogging has had to wait for the past few days as I've been preparing for the launch of Labour's Big Change, which took place yesterday. You can see the full text of the launch statement here and you can also see who else is backing the campaign, get involved and offer your own support, which seeks to put Climate Change front and centre in a way that has not been done before. It should inform every single aspect of government policy, not just be an add on to parts of transport and energy.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 06:54 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If Labour is going to win the next general election, we need a fundamentally new direction of travel for the new Government after the election of a new Leader and Deputy Leader. We have lost 4 million votes since 1997 and more than half our membership. This is not just because of the Iraq War, it is also because we are widely perceived, both in the Party and the electorate, to be going down the wrong track over a range of policies. We are losing support too because the style of government – spin, manipulation, centralising power at the top and not listening to the people – is unacceptable. We need radical change on both counts.

We need more than corrections of where we have clearly gone badly wrong – over Iraq, Lebanon and subservience to Bush, over the centralisation and unaccountability of Government today, over the growing and unacceptable inequality between rich and poor, over the privatisation of our public services, over the decline of manufacturing
and the weakness of workplace rights, and over the continuing erosion of civil liberties. What we need above all is a vision of a new direction which can fire the imagination of today’s generation.

What is the biggest threat facing the world today? It isn’t the so-called war on terror, whatever Bush may think. It isn’t the risk of nuclear war, now that the Cold War is over and the Soviet Union disbanded. The overriding political issue today, the danger that could overwhelm much of the planet, much of the human race, if not in our lifetime but certainly in that of our children or grandchildren, is climate change.

It’s not just the dramatically increasing frequency and ferocity of hurricanes, unprecedented flooding, rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers, or melting permafrost. Nor is it just the inextinguishable forest fires, the drying out of millions of hectares of croplands which will no longer produce food, or the mega-dustbowls from Northern China to the American mid-West. What is really frightening is that climate change is not a linear process, but a dynamic and unstable one. Scientists say there are tipping points where a gradual process suddenly explodes out of all proportion, where positive feedback effects abruptly accelerate climate change in unpredictable and overpowering ways – like the dieback of the Amazon, the release of billions of tonnes of methane hydrates from the ocean floor, or the collapse of the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets. If any of those happened in the next 50-100 years, the impact on human civilisation would be incalculable. There is no precedent – we are entering uncharted territory.

Now some may say: but that won’t affect us here in the UK, or at least not in our lifetime. Both assumptions are wrong. The UN predicts 50 million environmental refugees by the end of this decade, and where will they come to if not the richer, more settled, northern regions like the UK? The WHO estimates that 9 out of the world’s 10 most dangerous vector-borne disease will increase their coverage worldwide. If the ocean pump fails, the Gulf Stream will collapse and the UK temperature will plummet to that of Siberia. And as to not in our lifetime, Jim Hansen, George Bush’s leading climate modeller – no less – said recently we have “at most 10 years” to make the drastic cuts in emissions that might head off climate catastrophe.

So what should be done? Labour has to become the Party that will lead the world in a fundamental change of direction. It requires a change in how we think about our economics, energy, water management, food security, transportation, international policies, and the nature of civilisation itself. We have to move from the peripheral and tinkering to the profound and visionary.

Tackling climate change is the overarching policy which should permeate every other policy in government – not just energy, but transport, industry, building, agriculture, public expenditure and taxation, and foreign policy. Put bluntly, we will never have food security, water security, or energy security in this country (or anywhere else) unless we give absolute priority to combating climate change.

So what specifically should a new Government do?

We should be shifting away from massive old-fashioned power stations to decentralised energy systems (wind and solar power, and micro-generation plants in people’s homes), together with much more ambitious investment in large-scale offshore wind farms.

We should require the airline industry (like every other industry) to reduce year by year their emissions which are the fastest growing source of global warming.

We should increase VED massively for gas-guzzling cars and use the proceeds to subsidise bus and rail, plus give a rebate to smaller-engine car owners.

We should require industry to measure and make public their environmental and climate change impacts, not only greenhouse gas emissions, but their energy efficiency, waste generation, water consumption, and transport impacts, and reduce them year by year.

We should incentivise local food production which would regenerate British agriculture, dramatically cut air miles, and protect security of supply.

We should tighten building standards so that all new construction at least meets the most energy efficient standards already met in Europe and Scandinavia.

We should give each family, according to its size, a carbon entitlement which then has to be reduced each year in such a way so as to reward the conscientious and penalise the wasteful.

And in order to meet the target set by scientists of at least 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 compared with 1990, Government should set a target of 3% annual reduction in overall UK emissions, set out the new mechanisms to achieve this, publish the results each year, and make whatever changes are necessary year by year to keep the UK on track.

Underpinned by this comprehensive policy, Britain should gain the moral and political authority to lead the way internationally in pressing all other countries, especially the US, China and India, to commit to an enhanced and extended new Climate Change Protocol beyond 2010.

Above all, we should eliminate the biggest political threat to world security today by leading the world out of dependence on fossil fuels, particularly oil and gas, the struggle for the dwindling supplies of which lies at the heart of the incessant murderous carnage in the Middle East. We do that by huge new investment in renewable sources of energy, in which Britain is unusually well endowed, and by a massive targeted programme in energy conservation. Britain, because of its offshore location, has more wind-power capacity than the rest of Europe put together, but we are using only a tiny fraction of it. At present only 4% of our electricity generation comes from renewables. In Germany, France, Italy and Spain it is 15-25%, and in Scandinavia 25-35% or more. And our waste of energy – in transport, construction, industry, agriculture, and private households – is prodigious.

This is a win-win-win-win scenario. It will bring about a huge step-change in the efficient use of energy, it will save very considerable sums of money both for industry and some of our poorest households, it will protect our society against sudden destabilising external shocks, and it will safeguard the environment from the apocalyptic nightmare of climate change. It is not a utopian vision. It is highly practical and resolutely necessary if the world is to survive in a sustainable form. It will excite the imagination and galvanise our Party by restoring our commitment to a greater and deeper collective cause which has always been our inspiration.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Stern Report is arguably the most important wake-up call for the planet since World War II. It completely destroys Bush's argument that tackling climate change cannot be afforded (anyway an absurd claim for the US ever to make). This, the most comprehensive and authoritative report on the subject ever produced, demonstrates that the costs of not taking action are up to 20 times greater than the costs of taking preventative action now.

But the grand Blair-Brown rhetoric over Stern needs to be matched by action on the ground. At present it isn't.

Continue reading "Wake up and smell the carbon" »

Posted by Michael Meacher at 04:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

It’s all very well for Tony Blair at this stage, within sight of his departure, suddenly breaking the habit of a lifetime and announcing a consensual, inclusive review of the whole range of party policy before he goes

But it’s a bit rich to have a conversion to this new style of policy making at the end when for 12 years we have had policy settled exclusively in Labour HQ or No. 10 and election manifestos handed down from on high without so much as a flicker of Party consultation. Still, there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth …

Continue reading "Joy in Heaven?" »

Posted by Michael Meacher at 01:10 PM | Permalink

The atmosphere at last night's Intelligence Squared/Times debate was full of foreboding

KATRINA MADE the Bush Administration take climate change seriously. Fortunately we have had no Katrina-like episode in this country, but the warnings are plain to see.

Continue reading "Ten years to prevent catastrophe" »

Posted by Michael Meacher at 06:53 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The latest scientific reports all continue to confirm not only that climate change (or more realistically climate chaos) is happening, but that it is happening significantly faster than previously predicted.

Continue reading "Britain 2025 – Environmental Endgame" »

Posted by Michael Meacher at 07:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Will a new generation of nuclear power stations get a green light to help combat global warming? Recent press coverage and comment suggests that the nuclear lobby regard climate change as a convincing argument. Electricity generated by nuclear power is carbon emission free runs the argument and the conclusion is that Britain will only achieve its climate change targets with a revival of nuclear power. This is misguided.

Continue reading "Clean, green, within our means" »

Posted by Michael Meacher at 06:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

From the Financial Times

Russia's ratification of the Kyoto protocol - which could come as early as this Friday - is the breakthrough that makes the commitments of the signatory countries to the climate change agreement legally binding. It is great news. But is it enough?

The best the Kyoto protocol can now achieve, with the US still outside it, is a 2 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2010, compared with the 1990 baseline. Yet the scientists say we need a reduction of 60 per cent to arrest global warming. In fact, because developing countries, notably China and India, which are industrialising fast, are still declining to ratify the protocol, the greenhouse gas emissions of the planet as a whole are likely to increase by around 75 per cent by 2020.

That is disastrous enough. But two other factors increase the threat further. One is that the rate of global warming is steadily accelerating - it has doubled over the last few decades. The other is the real possibility that the die-back of forests, the collapse of the continental ice-sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, or the release of billions of tons of methane hydrates trapped in the oceans could suddenly increase the momentum of warming until it is out of control.

Is this all inevitable? Not necessarily. But to deliver the three-prong programme necessary to avoid it will require far greater political grit than the world has shown so far.

First, the level of global carbon emissions that can be "safely" absorbed into the atmosphere needs to be determined. The world's scientists have generally reckoned this level is about 550 parts per million. At present it is about 379 ppm, and increasing by 3 ppm per year. The only rational way then to keep below the 550 ppm ceiling is by setting an emissions quota for every country. Initially this quota would be set at each country's current emissions level. The quotas of the developed nations would then be gradually reduced, and those of the developing countries increased to allow them to industrialise, until all countries converged at a uniform per capita figure. Each national quota would then be reduced so that global emissions contracted and the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases remained below the agreed "safe" level. This programme has been called "contraction and convergence".

If this is the only equitable and long-term feasible solution, what are the chances of its gaining universal political consent? At the moment, very slim. The US, with 4 per cent of the world's population but responsible for 25 per cent of the world's carbon emissions, has reneged on the Kyoto protocol and has just shown itself willing to fight a war in Iraq to gain control of one of the largest remaining repositories of oil in the world. If the lead western country is still bent on a fossil-fuel economy, even at the price of war, why should developing countries sign up to the protocol?

The second fundamental requirement is a major and rapid switch to renewable sources of energy. This is currently happening only at a snail's pace. Solar energy and wind power have huge potential. But so far they provide less than half of 1 per cent of the world's energy and face enormous hurdles. For instance, the cost of manufacturing the silicon-based photovoltaic cells used in solar panels remains incredibly high and the power generated is intermittent depending on climatic conditions. Factoring the direct and indirect environmental costs of traditional power sources and petrol-driven vehicles into their price could accelerate the switch. But, again, governments may not be prepared to grasp this nettle.

The third policy prong is the least understood. The amount of energy we waste is colossal. More energy is discharged as waste heat by US power plants than is required by Japan to run its whole economy. It is estimated that raising the fuel economy of American vehicles by only 2 3/4 miles per gallon would be sufficient for the US to dispense completely with oil imports from the Gulf.

A massive worldwide push for energy conservation could therefore have an enormous impact. But this is feasible only if there is a fundamental shift away from the capitalist ethic of artificially stoking up demand to absorb higher incomes. The much-improved fuel economy of cars over the last decade has been far offset by consumers' habit of buying more and bigger vehicles.

No one policy is sufficient to confront climate change. It requires the combination of contraction and convergence to force down, equitably but effectively, the use of fossil fuels; a global switch, led by fiscal incentives, into renewable sources of energy; and a huge campaign to maximise conservation and relentlessly squeeze the prodigious waste of energy. These are the solutions. The big question is whether we are prepared to pursue them.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 02:50 PM | Permalink

(This article originally appeared in the Independent on Sunday.)

The fact that Gordon Brown has agreed to "review" his plan to raise fuel duty by 2p per litre in September - and the consequent calling off of all but one of the planned fuel protests yesterday - has been greeted with sighs of relief all round. Thank heavens for that. We'd all prefer an issue ducked to an embarrassing row, wouldn't we? But now Elliot Morley has popped up and, according to one newspaper, "shattered Labour's fragile truce with the fuel protesters". He says "A simplistic knee-jerk reaction to short-term petrol supply problems is not the answer."

Well, good for him. The whole debate is taking place on the wrong basis. The issue is not merely the price to the car or truck driver (after all, the real cost of motoring has actually fallen in the past two decades), but whether petrol price policy should be driven by Middle East oil markets or by a looming global warming catastrophe.

There is now abundant evidence that global warming is proceeding fasterthan scientists had previously predicted. If we carry on down our present path, we shall treble the amount of carbon dioxide that we emit by 2100, to a level of 1,000 parts per million, twice what scientists regard as a safe level. Greenhouse gas emissions from cars and lorries are now the fastest-rising cause of global warming. Unlike the last time we were in this situation, at the truck drivers' fuel protest in 2000, when the environment wasn't even mentioned, it should now occupy centre stage. The Government should have the courage to make the case - squarely and without apology - that fuel duty is a key instrument in controlling carbon dioxide emissions.

The counter to this argument is that increasing petrol duty is politically unpopular. It will not even be effective: the number of cars around the world, especially in developing countries such as China and India, is set to rise exponentially. Second, greenhouse gas emissions from industry - notably a massive increase in coal-burning to fuel China's increasing industrialisation - are growing rapidly. These will not be affected by Western transport taxes.

However, if the West (including eventually the US, by far the worst polluter) does not give a lead when we are the biggest offenders, countries such as China and India, with two-fifths of the world's population, will not follow suit. So the utterly devastating consequences of global warming will simply be visited on the whole world more quickly. If we delay until climatic disaster is so intense that we are forced to take action in order to survive, it will be too late because scientists believe there is at least a 200-year lead time before measures taken now will begin to cut carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

But it does mean standing up to the vested interests, which the Government hitherto has not been good at, whether over tobacco advertising, promotion of unhealthy fast foods, airline subsidies or alcohol advertising. In the case of the transport lobby, it means sending out a clear and unambiguous message, whether for road traffic or air travel, that there are environmental costs that have to be paid for in full, not least to encourage the search for less damaging means of travel.

It is therefore a much, much bigger issue than whether or not to raise fuel duty by 2p a litre. Nor will pleading with Opec to increase production quotas have much effect when the output of member countries is already 10 per cent above the formal quota limits. What is needed is a long-term policy to escape the regular cycle whereby governments push billions of dollars into investing in alternative energy sources as oil markets tighten, only to allow such investments to dissipate as the oil crisis eases.

First, the Government should keep fuel duty steady in real terms, but make clear that it is adding a surcharge of, say, three per cent a year for environmental reasons. The extra proceeds should not accrue to the Exchequer, but should be invested in alternative, affordable public transport. Second, because the end of Big Oil is now in sight and steadily increasing demand will overtake supply by 2010-15 - pushing up the price of oil inexorably - a sustained multibillion pound investment in renewable energy is imperative. The eclipse of oil, the gradual rundown of coal and the phase-out of nuclear power, heralded in last year's Energy White Paper, now need to be followed through in founding the new energy world order. That is the real lesson of the 2p debate.
6 June 2004