Vox Polis

Mc D’s have started a new PR campaign to convince us that their burgers only contain meat and that they care about the environment. It’s all on a swanky new website called- Make up your own mind.

As expected the questions put on the website, supposedly supplied by real people, are not answered at all. For example, someone asks “can you do more reduce your packaging?”

The answer: “we aim to make sure that as much of our packaging as possible is made from renewable resources”. No mention of any attempt to reduce packaging. And they certainly need to make an effect to reduce it - see my post on packaging.

They’ve even started offering to take people to see the cows that Mc D’s meat comes from and become a Quality Scout. I wonder if that includes a trip around the production factories…my guess is probably not!

The government are due to announce this afternoon that new nuclear power plants will be required to meet the UK’s energy needs into the future without increasing our reliance on foreign supplies of fossil fuels.  There’s considerable opposition to this from environmental groups, the Liberal Democrats and some Labour MPs but the cabinet are (publically at least) behind nuclear and there’s enough time before the next election for them to set us on the road.  There will also be funds for renewable schemes but it seems unlikely that the government will aim for more than 20% of energy supply from renewables.

My key problem with this is the way the decision appears to have been taken.  At no point during the review process has it seemed likely that the result would favour anything over than more nuclear generation.  Indeed, Tony Blair was publicly backing nuclear power as far back as May.  The decision to place increased reliance on nuclear power will have ramifications for generations to come both in terms of waste disposal and the inevitable setbacks to progress on generation from renewable sources.  In light of these long term consequences I’m, frankly, horrified at the shadowy way the review has been conducted without extensive public debate and at our prime minister’s attitude that he didn’t even need a review to make his mind up.  In a political climate of short-termism and knee jerk policy making how can we trust the government with the nation’s long term security?

I’ve previously covered the difficulties that new windfarm construction schemes can have when faced with (amusingly ill-informed) local objections. In light of that, these alternative designs from the Netherlands seem like a pretty good idea. Personally I like them but then I’ve never had a problem with the standard turbine design. Unfortunately I fear that disguising turbines with a thin veneer of modern art won’t fly so well with the “but it’s not art” Daily Mail crowd.

Via We Make Money Not Art.

Looks like Alistair Darling is going to introduce some new measures to reduce climate change by paradoxically getting energy companies to encourage people to save energy. Energy companies would have targets to reduce their customers’ energy consumption - clearly not going to be popular with energy companies. They could even force people to put wind turbines on their house according to the interview in the Sunday Independent.

It’s a bold move. I can’t think of an example where any company has in the past been forced by law to get its customers to actually stop buying their products, although there are examples of businesses voluntarily forming organisations to deal with the externalities of their products (Drinkaware trust is funded by the drinks industry).   We’ll  have to wait and see if it actually happens.

Yet again the US has outperformed the EU, according to this week’s The Business. But for once it’s not an article criticising the EU for its poor economic growth or its excessively high unemployment. This time the US has beaten the EU at its own raison d’etre: Climate Change.

According to the Business, the US has kept CO2 emissions constant, whilst they have continued to rise in the EU. It puts this down to the high proportional increase in fuel prices in the US which have encouraged innovation and the move towards lower emission technology. Whether this trend will continue remains to be seen.

The situation in the EU is worrying. The EU prides itself on its environmental credentials and often takes the international lead on new regulatory mechanisms to reduce mankinds environmental impact (see the RoHS and WEEE directives). Even though the EU has introduced a market based mechanism to tackle CO2, the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), emissions have continued to rise.

ETS gives businesses carbon permits to cover their CO2 emissions. If businesses reduce their CO2 they can then trade permits with other businesses that emit too much. This is much in line with the polluter pays principle. The scheme is a great initiative on paper: in economist terms it is efficent, and has the advantage of the double dividend: improve the environment and help economic growth. However in pratice the EU has created an overregulated and burdensome mechanism that has so far had little impact on emissions.

The EU’s biggest mistake was giving the permits away for free to each business instead of auctioning them off. Giving them away for free basically transfers permits to a business that are worth millions of euros, and could be seen as a form of state aid. According to the Sunday Telegraph, this allocation has meant that businesses, including Esso and other oil companies, have made millions out of the scheme.

Instead of auctioning the permits, the EU member states formed burdensome National Allocation Plans to distribute the permits to the different sectors in the scheme. However each member state chose to distribute them in a different way. Some basing it on their historic emissions, others on their future emissions. This resulted in some plans giving some businesses more permits than they required. They then sold these to make money.

It looks like the EU will continue to make the same mistakes in the second phase of the scheme which operate from 2008. Last week Germany and France indicated that they will actually increase emissions in the second phase.

So what’s the solution?

Clearly doing nothing is not the answer- although it seems to be working in the case of the US. But the current ETS is not performing as it should and could. Last week the IPPR called for the EU to decide the allocation of permits. This is something that member states are unlikely to agree with: allowing the EU to dictate how much aid each industry gets is certainly something they wont like.

The situation is certainly critical. In 2008 the Kyoto mechanism is supposed to come on line, and we’ll start to see project based credits too, which will certainly complicate matters.

The solution is simply to allow all the allocations to be auctioned off. This is the most efficient method, and will result in the CO2 reductions the EU needs to achieve if it is ever to meet the kyoto agreement.

…at least the kind without cars. Seems the congestion charge is doing it’s job according to the 4th annual report. Congestion levels have dropped 22% since the charge was introduced and more importantly air pollution has decreased by 13-15%. I appreciate that for people who have to drive into London on a regular basis the charge is, at best, unwelcome, but with the benefits been so obvious it’s hard to argue against the spread of similar schemes to other cities. On a broader note it’d be nice if Westminster had the willpower to implement similar “grand plans” to preserve our health and environment.

Via Londonist.

It’s no surpise that Blair has decided the government’s energy review has decided to back the nuclear option, as Blair will signal in a speech tonight…but it’s not the only solution. If only they’d read our comments here.

Looks like the EU has finally taken action on battery recycling…it’s about time, especially looking at the UK’s poor record as we reported here in February.

So hybrid cars arn’t going to save the world, why am I not surprised. As reported in the Guardian, hybrid cars are as polluting as the traditional family estate cars. I love the way that politicians and celebrities have adopted the hybrid as a symbol of their green creditials - “I’ve got a hybrid therefore i’m doing my part to save the environment” are the words uttered so easily.

The hybrid car is a convenient symbol - only a few thousand pounds more than a typical car and what’s great is you don’t have to change your lifestyles one bit. You can still drive where you want, when you want. But as we know to save the environment we must change our habits…and this is the hardest thing of all. David Cameron would agree with me on this- he’s attempt to grab the green vote faulted last week when it was reported that a car followed his bicycle to work full of his paperwork and clothes. Clearly Dave needs to get a bag for his bike.

If politicians really want to prove to me they care about the environment then why not just use public transport or walk. May be after a week of being late because of buses and trains they may also start to think seriously about the transport system as well! Double wammy!!

Maybe London needs this.  The New York Metro newspaper is attempting to deal with the litter problem its free newspaper inevitably causes by employing people to collect them, iron them out and give them out again.  Not a bad idea really.