The Week that Was...

Two higlights from last week - the Queen's Speech and the international climate negotiations in Nairobi, Kenya.

"My government will publish a bill on climate change as part of its policy to protect the environment, consistent with the need to secure long-term energy supplies. "

One line in a speech, but that's what we've been waiting for for a while. It wasn't a secret that we've been waiting for with great angst and anticipation, having known about the impending announcement for about two weeks now, but there will hopefully be no further backtracking with a new Climate Bill passing through Parliament in the next twelve months.

Now, the big question - what kind of Climate Bill will it be? Obviously, we want it to be a Climate Bill that 'does stuff', as I like to call it. Earlier in the year, DEFRA announced that Britain was likely to fall short of its 20% cut target for CO2 emissions by 2010 - it would cut around 15-17% instead. Even if Ministers have talked about a 60% cut by 2050 for a while, there's little, save for momentary political embarassment, to actually ensure that that cut is made. Now that the target will become law, the policies and strategies have to be put in place across the economy and society to make sure that these cuts happen.

A new Bill is needed to provide a binding framework to meet this target. Initial plans sound iffy on the idea of annual cuts, but if not annual, then every two-yearly targets need to be set to hold on to short-term commitments and deliver a sense of immediacy and urgency to cutting carbon emissions. The other main thing being mooted is a 'carbon committee', an independent committee to monitor progress on the targets. But detail is still thin on the ground, with both the committee and the shape of the rest of the planned legislation, and much more detail will be forthcoming over the next few months, with hopefully a public consultation to appear soon, when we can make clear what we want in a Climate Bill that does stuff.

You can also comment on the Climate Bill (or any other aspect of the Queen's Speech) and have a reply from the Labour Party.

The end of the United Nations climate negotiations in Nairobi, Kenya, focused on a review of the Kyoto Protocol and beginning negotiations on its successor (it expires in 2012), however, has less of a warm glow to it.

The real sticking point was on a post-Kyoto global binding deal. The tricky thing about Kyoto, and one of the main objections to it, was that in recognition of the historical responsibilities and contributions of the industrial, developed countries to climate change, they were the ones who had binding targets placed upon them to cut carbon emissions. This excluded China and India, who are some of the world's largest emitters (even if not on a per capita basis). But since Kyoto was agreed in 1997, we've come a long way in recognizing the impacts that climate change will have, and a new agreement needs to bring developing countries, in particular the two members of the billion-citizen club on board.

The outcome of the Nairobi summit was a general commitment for in-depth negotiations to begin next year with an ideal conclusion by the end of 2008. No commitment was made in principle that developing countries should have to make cuts at all, driven largely by the perspective that cutting carbon emissions will damage economic growth.

To a certain extent I can understand this point - tougher standards and requirements will increase red tape and deter business - but you've got to take the longer-term view (which unfortunately too few politicians operate in) in recognizing the costs of addressing and adapting to the implications of climate change. The time for prevention of climatic change for the next twenty-thirty years has passed, and we'll be having to find the cures for the hundreds of millions of people who feel its effects - but there is still time to prevent the thirty-odd years that follow it, because it we don't, we may not be able to do much about it then.

So, in both cases, a start and a step forward - but much more remains to be done.

UPDATE - A conversation between Tony Juniper (Friends of the Earth director) and Tony Blair to which you can contribute...