A Green Budget. NOT.

Well that was a damp squib for anyone hoping for a green budget. Here are the headlines:

• A change from air passenger duty to a tax on planes but no curb on airport expansion which will guarantee that we can't meet our CO2 reduction targets.
• £26m to help homes become greener - that's about a pound per UK household!
• A law to make supermarkets charge for plastic bags by 2009 if they don't do it themselves - just as communities all over the country are introducing voluntary bans.
• £950 on the price of a new gas guzzler but no curb on roads expansion and a delay on increasing fuel duty.
• New non-domestic buildings to be zero carbon by 2019 when the more progressive councils, like Lib Dem Milton Keynes, have already brought in carbon neutrality for new buildings.

Did I say headlines? I'm sorry - that's your lot - there's nothing else. And set against that there's no feed-in tariff to encourage individuals and businesses to supply electricity to the grid which is what has kickstarted the renewables industry across Europe, there's no comprehensive plan for making our homes more energy efficient, there's no investment in railways, no new money for wave technology.

It's pathetic. And, as The Guardian pointed out today, it actually amounts to "a cowardly cut in green taxes of some £550m."

Sustainable Red Herrings

Mark Price of Waitrose raises an important issue in the Guardian today - www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/10/ethicalliving.waitrose - that of the high carbon emissions associated with refrigeration in the food industry. What could be crazier in an era of concern about climate change than the supermarket practice of leaving freezers and fridges open and then heating the surrounding space to keep shoppers warm? Another dirty word that is too often unspoken is shipping which transports 97% of the world’s trade. It could be virtually carbon-free through the use of solar and wind energy, but which governments are pushing for this? Our government is trying to ignore it altogether by leaving shipping (and aviation) emissions out of the CO2 targets of the Climate Change Bill.

Mr Price is surely right to say that the responsible consumer is struggling to juggle concepts like local, seasonal, organic, unhealthy, fair trade, animal welfare and low carbon. However this should not be left up to individuals. The government needs to set standards (rather than let industry do it as Labour has done these last 11 years) and we need a sustainability label, perhaps using traffic light colours, which allows consumers to understand the impacts of their purchases as quickly as they do price.

Mr Price is however wrong to dismiss plastic bag bans as a red herring. If we are to win the battle against climate change, then the public needs to be persuaded of the need to consume more sustainably. Plastic bags and bottled water are useful symbols which can help to trigger wider lifestyle changes. By contrast, air freighting of fresh produce is in a totally different category because, if present trends continue, aviation will account for more than 100% of our national emissions target by 2050 and, whatever Richard Branson may say, there is no technological solution on the horizon for jet planes.