UCU Support for Go Green and Fairtrade

The lecturers' union, University and College Union (UCU) has passed a motion in support of the Aber Guild of Students and Aber People & Planet's campaigns to achieve Fairtrade University status, and get UWA to Go Green.

Yesterday, myself and the respective People & Planet campaign coordinators spoke for a few minutes about the campaigns to the AGM of the local branch of the UCU, where a motion had been submitted to declare its support for these two campaigns. There were no dissenting votes against the motion, which is another step forward in getting public awareness and pressure behind these two campaigns.

At a symbolic level, both Go Green and Fairtrade are now official policy of both the students' union and the lecturers' union, which is a major boost to our efforts. The university, at a senior management level at least, continues to be hesitant about both of these student-led campaigns in making strong commitments to both environmental improvement and increasing the presence of Fairtrade on campus.

But I do hope that this latest outcome is more than symbolic, and that we can take the opportunity to build closer links with teaching staff - they are, after all, the other half of the university and often here for the long-run. Getting increased staff support through the Fairtrade steering group, and possibly a similar arrangement for Go Green, would be a useful start.

At the ongoing UCU national conference, a motion about campus sustainability was also passed unanimously. The green agenda in educational institutions is one that cannot be ignored.

Bankrolling Environmental Change

The UK's largest bank, HSBC, has just announced a new five-year $100m contribution towards addressing the causes and effects of climate change. The contributions, to be spread among four environmental groups, is intended to fund research into freshwater river systems, low-carbon urban living in megacities, the impact of climate change on forests, and educational research towards sustainable living.

However, as an analysis piece by BBC business editor Clare Davidson higlights, its lending policies will not change:
"After showing a short HSBC-branded film featuring imagined scenes including London under water and the Amazon being transformed into a huge motorway, the bank's chairman Stephen Green said that withdrawing from so-called "sensitive sectors" - including energy, water, forestry, chemicals or mining, would not be the right thing.

"HSBC would remain committed to clients across these sectors, Mr Green said, "as long as we are confident that they are engaged in a journey towards environmental sustainability"."

$100m is a contribution that certainly should not be sniffed at - and it will enable the benefiting organisations to scale up their work over a medium-term five year timescale. For the groups, these multimillion contributions will make a big difference. But there is a tinge of greenwash to this burst of generosity because for HSBC, $100m when compared with record-breaking $22bn of profits still really isn't much.

The bank, like many others now, are talking about being carbon neutral - but such descriptions only extend to their own operations - staffing, buildings, travel and offsetting. While these are undoubtedly necessary, what most banks fail to address - and RBS has taken the brunt of the attention because of its own emphasis on this area - are its lending policies towards environmentally unsound industries and services. By providing credit and overdraft facilities for oil & gas, logging and mining sectors, banks actively support the expansion and continuied prosperity of these industries that contribute to climate change and environmental degradation.

The real challenge is to ensure that all $22bn of HSBC's profits, and not just a pigeonholed $100m, can be earned in environmentally sensitive and ethically responsible ways.

Is Monbiot Right?

Speaking at the Hay Festival this weekend, environmental campaigner George Monbiot has criticised both onshore windfarms and a potential Severn barrage - key planks of Welsh Assembly Government environmental and energy policy.

Onshore wind "has reached saturation point" and future developments will "generate so much antagonism it'll turn people off dealing with climate change"; as for a hydroelectric barrage running from South Wales to England across the Bristol Channel, "It will cause too much environmental damage...there are far better ways of getting energy from the sea - tidal lagoon technology, for example."

I would agree with some of what he says here - that onshore wind has been disproportionately favored, through planning regulations such as the WAG's TAN 8 guidelines and grants from central government. Not enough emphasis has been placed on offshore wind and the smaller-scale sea-based technologies, and the fiasco over home microgeneration incentives for households and a determination to press forward with new nuclear shows that policy is all over the place and far from joined-up.

But antagonism? I think modern wind turbines are a symbol of the challenge that we will face through this next century and if they stand there as a visual reminder of climate change and how we've all got to learn to live differently I'm all for them. They're about capturing the free and clean energy blowing around us and a positive sign of what we can do for the planet!

There are no easy solutions on the supply side, and the vitrol directed at them by anti-windfarm campaigners often leads to a misbalanced and intimidating perspective of what the public really thinks. Granted, the way things currently work with large corporate conglomerates owning windfarms is not ideal and communities easily feel excluded and wind alone is far from a complete answer - but I do think that given time, we will readily get used to seeing them around.

Competing to be Green

Will Duguid, Observer columnist mused about this question a fortnight ago: is it ethical to compete in a rat race?

"Don't get me wrong: I'm all for honouring those trying to create a more sustainable way of life. And no one, in my opinion, has done more to bring about a comprehensively lagged UK than Observer finalist, my colleague George Monbiot. But, George, George, since when was competition ethical?

"Isn't competition with others to blame for most of the ills that afflict this beleaguered planet? If we are to take forward the green agenda, what we need is less rivalry and personal ambition - and more collaboration, harmony and working together for the common good."

Although somewhat tongue-in-cheek, he does have a point. Competition, a la unbridled market economics, to drive down the price and increase the affordability of goods and services underlies many of our contemporary challenges. A paradigm of consumerism comes at the top of the list, where more is better, especially in relation to the Joneses, and 'more' usually involves the haphazard and breakneck depletion of our natural resources. Areas of special conservation are tossed aside and human rights are ignored because the big question, at the end of the day, is how much bang you can get for your buck.

Still, the proliferation of job opportunities in the charitable sector, in environmental and social justice work and the increased profile and attractiveness of work in the educational and health sectors offer a glimpse of life different to suits, corporatespeak and 24/7 Blackberry connectivity. Life can be meaningful, fulfilling and rewarding outside an addiction to wealth, fame and power. As another cohort of fellow students prepare to graduate and step into full-time employment, maintaining the idea that money isn't the only game in town is, however, a challenging one.

Taking out the trash day

One of today's top news stories is Environment Secretary David Miliband's proposal for increased charges for landfill waste and correspondingly, council tax cuts for recycling waste, announced as part of a broader package of measures of the UK Government's waste strategy.

Of course, devolution means that this strategy doesn't apply to Wales and that the Welsh Assembly Government will have its own considerations and priorities for addressing waste disposal and its last publication on the subject was the snappily-titled Wise About Waste, which was released in 2002. Naturally, the mainstream media don't mention this difference between England and the rest of the UK...

The idea, to me, sounds sound. It's about incentivizing greener behaviour, rather than the same council tax charge applying to all regardless of how much they recycle. At the same time though, we must also recognize the onus on supermarkets and large retailers to drastically reduce the amount of packaging that goes straight into the bin. As the natty pie chart on the right here also shows, the significant opportunity to avoid food scraps going straight to landfill should also be seized - whether towards biomass energy or for compost.

Greening the Student

The student lifestyle - pasta, tomato sauce, canned tuna, dried herbs, beer cans and kebabs. Stereotypical, but I know enough people who fit that generalization.

Student habits are nowhere near as environmentally responsible as they should be and I will be the first to acknowledge that. I have been for a walk around campus at the end of term when students vacate university residences and the amount of waste generated is simply staggering - fridges full of food, bedding, pots and pans, even electronics! Lights are pouring out of buildings at night and even in the middle of winter windows are swung wide open.

A short article by Julia Hailes of New Consumer magazine illustrates the range of ungreen behaviour that has ended up being part and parcel of the student lifestyle. But the crucial thing, as she points out, and which I harp on about frequently, is the role of the university in making green the default option for students. Where are they now?

"Apparently the higher education sector in the UK emits 3m tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere annually. I'm not surprised with these sorts of wasteful practices. It's far less efficient that the business community in terms of its carbon emissions.

"The good news is that some universities and colleges are changing for the better and becoming beacons of good practice. The bad news is that there aren't yet many of them."

When I complete my exams I'll be offering a series of reflections and thoughts on my year and where things could go next. But the underlying theme for me, at least is that consistent, evolving change must be university-, not student-led.

Is this a cop-out? Hardly. The revolving door of students makes it difficult, despite our best efforts, to drive progressive year-on-year change without having to take a few steps backward at the beginning of every year. Institutionalising a commitment to change and providing the resources to back up that commitment within the university itself is what's ultimately needed across-the-board progress. And I've only heard mixed signals at this level so far.

Pushing too hard?

A fascinating retrospective on the resurgence of the whaling issue (which provocatively asks 'did the greens help kill the whale?!) from the BBC has raised a key issue involved in campaigning - in setting ourselves the highest standards of a vision of the future do we end up pushing an issue beyond the zone of what is currently feasible and over the edge? Put differently, campaigning can sometimes push targets too hard and turn them around completely in the other direction.

This is an entirely valid point, and one that every campaign on any issue must confront. On one hand, I generally work on the logic of setting the bar high, and in the process even if progress doesn't reach that lofty standard, things will probably still be better than if a 'realistic' target had been set. The point is to make big demands even if we're well aware that those aren't easily achievable, but in the process, that offers a bit of space for compromise and negotiation for something that at the outset would be an entirely acceptable outcome.

On the other hand, as the journalist suggests was the case for Japan in the 1980s, keeping the pressure at boiling temperature might create a backlash where our campaign target, already hesitant to move on the issue, completely turns around for a flat-out, uncompromising 'no'. This lesson suggests the need to maintain a sense of pragmatism and, in what is perhaps incredibly difficult for all of us who want to see change tomorrow, patience.

Is there a right answer? Set the bar too high can end up in never seeing complete success, but setting the bar too low can also end up in falling well short of the necessary solution to a problem.

But I think that to set the bar lower just in thinking that 'there's no way in hell that we're going to get that' is to concede ground before the debate and campaign has even begun. We aim high because that's what we believe in, and believe is necessary. To be sure, we modify and compromise as things unfold and twist and turn. But campaigning must always be ambitious and winning some probably goes side by side with losing some.

Going, going....

Today's Guardian reports how worldwide CO2 emissions rose by 3.1% a year between 2000-2004 - a pace of progress that outstrips even the latest worst-case scenario predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. By comparison, the 1990s - which already marked some of the hottest years on record, averaged 1.1% annual increases.

Action now, now, now. You can begin with a simple online response, courtesy of the World Development Movement, to respond to the ongoing consultation for a Climate Change Bill and to press your elected representatives for an ambitious piece of legislation. Of course, there is no substitute for a personally drafted response to the consultation itself, which has a response deadline of 12 June.

Here is what is the killer statistic, for me - that the developed world has been responsible for a staggering 77% of CO2 emissions since the start of the industrial revolution. It is the effects of the last hundred years which we are feeling today. We hear about India and China all the time, often in the guise of excuses for tough domestic action, but there can be no denying that by and large, the historical responsibility for anthropogenic climate change lies here, in the developed world. This is the historical responsibility for our paradoxical encountering of increased flooding and increased drought that already perils the lives of hundreds of millions and is only going to worsen.

Good Oil

As more and more educational institutions jump onto the sustainability bandwagon, the latest example of innovative and eco-friendly best practice comes from a fellow branch of the University of Wales, at Newport, South Wales.

The sexy idea that they've come up with and put into practice is to convert used cooking oil into biodiesel to power its on-site vehicles - tractors, road-sweepers and power generators. The production process is all on-campus, recycles cooking oil that would otherwise have to be discarded, and generates fewer carbon emissions (around 20 tons/year) that regular diesel that would otherwise have been used.

Saves money - and cuts down on greenhouse gases! What is impressive about schemes like this is just simply getting it off the ground - in getting senior management support, being able to demonstrate its financial viability, taking an adventurous step in an area that isn't a conventional university practice. It's adventurous not in the science of the process, which is well established, but in being able to work through the bureaucratic inertia that university administrations will typically have towards nontraditional ideas such as these.

And oh look - not only do they have an environmental staff officer but are also plugging away at their ISO14001 environmental management standard!

What will Aber's big idea be?

Unfree Information

This might seem an unlikely subject for this blog, but as someone who has used Freedom of Information provisions before, the recent disgrace in the House of Commons regarding its provisions resonates sharply with me.

What happened? Last Friday, a Conservative-sponsored private members' bill was passed (78 Labour and 18 Tories voting in favour) exempting MPs and Lords from the Freedom of Information Act. Hypocritical at the very least in the argument that legislators should be exempt from a part of the law that they have passed, this bill will only add to increased mistrust and suspicion with which politicians are viewed by many members of the public. Elected representatives should be at the front of ensuring transparent and accessible government, not putting up further limits and curbs on obtaining information relevant to MPs' work.

As Saturday's Guardian leader put it:
"The grounds for doing so were spurious, an exaggerated fear about the exposure of private correspondence that failed to disguise parliament's fundamental distaste for making its inner workings public. The smell of a private gentlemen's club, all beeswax and dusty velvet, hung over the debate, the outcome of which was about as far as it is possible to get from openness and accountability."

Who ate all the pies?

Tomorrow's FA Cup Final at Wembley provides a moment for reflection on what happens when plenty of people congregate in one place for an event - that in the midst of having fun, a lot of waste is generated and energy consumed.

A study conducted by Cardiff University in the wake of the 2004 FA Cup Final at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium has revealed that the massive ecological footprint of the event was some 3000 hectares (one hectare being around the size of the pitch) - meaning that 3000 hectares would be needed to provide all the resources consumed at the match. Processed food and drink, electricity and water usage, transport all add up to create an impact for each fan ten times greater than the stay-at-home fan. Here are some overwhelming numbers:

"The Manchester United and Millwall fans at that match put away 37,624 sausage rolls, pies or pasties, 26,965 sandwiches, 17,998 hot dogs, 12,780 burgers, 11,502 packets of crisps and 23,909 portions of chips. And this was all washed down with 303,001 pints of lager, 66,584 pints of beer and 38,906 pints of cider, as well as 12,452 bottles of wine, 90,481 shots and 63,141 bottles of alcopops. The binge left its mark on Cardiff's city centre, with 37 tonnes of glass, 8 tonnes of paper and 11 tonnes of uneaten food left behind. None was recycled."

Summer festivals offer another set of examples - although instances like the Big Green Gathering and Beach Break Live offer a different and changing genre where sustainability and ethicality (is that a word?) are core elements to the festival itself. Even Glastonbury is getting on the act - although still fairly slowly - by providing recycled loo paper for all festivalgoers instead of people having to bring their own.

This post isn't supposed to be a depressing, caveman whinge that we shouldn't have cup finals or summer music festivals, but rather, an optimistic assertion that things don't have to be this way and that a different, more sustainable way of living is possible. We can enjoy ourselves and live lightly on the earth (glass half full!!). Big events can even make a neutral contribution to the environment. We just have to imagine things being a bit different to where they are now, and get off our bums to make imagination reality.

This Uni's Plan to Save the Planet (sort of)

Without the help of a word-editing program to make things look neat and pretty, the following is a simplified version of this university's draft environmental strategy that will be presented for approval to the Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) committee in June. Enjoy.

Local Environment and Ecology - an assesment of the biodiversity status of the Penglais campus and make recommendations (completion date tbc).

Procurement - to identify objectives and targets in reference to achieving 'sustainable procurement' (this refers to an assessment framework to determine procurement supports sustainable development objectives) (completion date 31 May 2007 for study); to attain a BREEAM rating of excellent for all future new build (completion date ongoing)

Transport and Travel - to establish a UWA Travel Plan (completion date April 2008); to develop options for a voluntary carbon offset scheme for UWA business travel (completion date Oct 2007)

Resource Consumption - to develop a program of water-saving measures (completion date Sept 2007); to reduce CO2 emissions by 10%/student in academic buildings and 5% in residential buildings (cd Sept 2009); to determine the economic viability of significant renewable energy projects at UWA and table proposals (cd April 2008); to examine aspects of sustainability in bioscience research and produce a best-practice toolkit (cd tbc)

Releases to Air and Water - to ensure that these comply with legal and policy requirements (ongoing)

Waste and Recycling - to establish a Recycling and Waste Management group to develop initiatives and programmes of work (cd May 2007)

Green Curriculum - to develop UWA's Learning and Teaching Strategy to include a strategy for embedding Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship across the curriculum (cd 2007 Planning Round)

Further to this I have also established that ISO 14001, an accreditation standard for environmental management systems, is also being considered by the university - this is an externally-audited standard for environmental management, which certifies that the university's current structures meet a given standard for effective environmental management.

The Radical Edge

A better world? Yes, of course, but how the doozy do we go about making it so?

Today's Guardian carries a story about a Tesco shareholder getting together with a number of other small shareholders to table a resolution at Tesco's AGM to compel the supermarket to enforce higher standards in dealing with suppliers and farmers across its global supply chain.

"The resolution would oblige Tesco to appoint independent auditors to ensure that workers in its supplier factories and farms are guaranteed "decent working conditions, a living wage, job security" and the right to join a trade union of their choice. Mr Birnberg had asked Tesco's directors to include the resolution to demonstrate their commitment to ethical sourcing by backing his resolution and circulating it to shareholders.

"Company secretary Jonathan Lloyd turned down the request, claiming it was "not valid", so Mr Birnberg turned to measures included in the Companies Act to force the retailer to comply. Under Section 376 of the act he needed the support of at least 100 other shareholders who held an average of 2,000 shares each."

A number of things stick out for me here - the first is the use of the Companies Act, one of the longest pieces of legislation in British parliamentary history that was passed last year, and which the Trade Justice Movement was lobbying on to ensure a greater commitment for companies to consider environmental and social responsibilities alongside profit. I think the provision that was used in this case is one of the more benign ones, but illustrates the importance and role that legislation plays in shaping a better world. It is mundane and voluminous stuff, but as illustrates a recent trend in making campaigning more specific (a Climate Change Bill, or a Sustainable Communities Bill) things can't get more stringent that being law. This is not to advocate to legislate for everything - no nanny state involved - but in terms of signals from government and shaping what is acceptable (and even what should be acceptable) behaviour is tremendously important. The detail matters.

The second point is using investors and shareholdings as a means of effecting change. To my understanding this has really only served to ask embarassing questions to executives at AGMs in the past, because most shares in big companies are owned by other big companies, banks, pension funds and private equity firms so the actual change that can be effected is limited. Some campaigners would dismiss 'change from within' as being far too glacial and simply ineffective. Can shareholder power really change institutions towards taking its social and environmental responsibilities seriously? Do we end up simply legitimating many of their practices, no matter how distasteful, in the process?

There isn't a straightfoward answer, and one to which I have tended to be a bit skeptical in the past. But I come back to considering the global justice movement as a broad one, where some groups to try to engage with 'big business' and where others to rally outside the factory gates and form human chains. Change from within, and from without, because both complement each other, shaping societal attitudes and creating the policy space for new ideas to insert themselves. All of these matter, and the diversity of strategies involved work at multiple levels (because people are diverse too and think differently) to achieve change for a better world.

Fairtrade Mad!

Last week saw Aber People & Planet host the first UWA Fairtrade Forum, held in the Joint in the Students Union. The purpose of the event was to raise awareness on campus of the push to attain Fairtrade status, giving a concrete goal to frame efforts to increase consumption and awareness of Fairtrade products and the need for Fairtrade.

Speakers included Ben Gray, current Guild president, Sam Lumb, Guild president-elect, Silje Vold, Fairtrade campaigner at People & Planet, and Mark Richardson, the Wales Fairtrade Country campaign national coordinator and Tom Marshall, from Aber People & Planet (from right to left). Each spoke for a few minutes about the Fairtrade University campaign from their perspective, before the floor was thrown open to questions - including the relative benefits of Fairtrade, what it would mean in operational terms for the Guild and University and how to take the campaign forward. Happily, the Forum (with around 30 students in attendance) ended with a symbolic vote on going forward with Fairtrade status, which everyone was in agreement with.

On the same day, the Fairtrade Global Banner arrived in Aberystwyth, the latest leg of its Global Journey tour through Wales after passing through some fifty-odd countries since leaving Mumbai, India in 2004. The Cambrian News reported on the joint activities throughout the county for the day, the highlight of the banner's visit being a parade along the prom with samba band in tow, ending in the Aber castle grounds on a glorious day where the Fairtrade declaration was read out.

The Global Banner is the one on the right, representing the logo of the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT), the international body coordinating national fair trade organizations around the world.

Campaign for a Progressive, Green NUS

Fellow students at universities up and down the country who have been similarly disillusioned by what happened (or rather, didn't happen) at NUS Annual Conference this year have gotten together to trade ideas and develop a coherent agenda for the NUS' future. Work over the past couple of months has finally resulted in a 'manifesto' of sorts for the campaign for a progressive, green NUS, of which excerpts are taken below:

"The student movement is at a crossroads and our generation carries the responsibility of shaping our own future. We can become docile and co-opted, or we can fight and win the campaigns that will bring real benefits to our members and to countless others around the world.

"We have made a choice. We must defend social justice in education by reversing top-up fees; we must take radical action to avert the worst effects of climate change; and we must disarm our education for a peaceful future.

"It's time NUS had a wake up call. Most students shun the national movement, choosing to become involved instead in campaigning societies and movements - from People and Planet and Amnesty to Stop the War - whilst feeling isolated from NUS.

"If NUS is to win the big debates - on fees, on top up fees and the cap, every active student must be a part. By bringing these issues together under the NUS we can harness the energy of our many student activists and strengthen all our campaigns.

"The student movement should take a holistic approach to the issues it faces and not be afraid to make radical calls for change in the education system and wider society. NUS should be avowedly and unashamedly political.

In this vision, the NUS must focus on four central pillars of principle - social justice, sustainability, peace and internationalism, and participatory open democracy. What do these mean in practice? Here are the beginnings of policy change in this direction for the NUS:

*** For a progressive, ambitious, radical education campaign - opposing any kind of charging for education, especially top-up fees which penalise low paid families***

***For action on climate change - promoting Contraction and Convergence as the international political framework for action on climate change, working with the UK Student Climate Justice Campaign***

***For ethical banking - boycotting the Royal Bank of Scotland and switching NUS' account ***

***For a truly influential International Students Campaign, including Home Fees for Asylum Seekers, instead of international fees ***

***For strongly opposing racism and fascism of the BNP, AND opposing the institutional racism of deportations students to war zones***

***For Fairtrade in all universities and the NUS, but also for Trade Justice ***

***For arms control, but also for removing arms dealers from campus and backing the Campaign against the Arms Trades' Clean Investment Campaign against universities and colleges investing in arms companies ***

*** For overcoming the spurious arguments against a free education and universal grants, which can and must be funded as part of a wider scheme for greater equality in our society, and promoting alternatives such as targeted grants based on a students' income rather than the parents', or abolishing poverty altogether through a citizens income***

A good start, but the work to argue, to persuade and to influence fellow students and those beyond is just beginning.

Waste and Recycling Management sub-group

Last week the new Waste and Recycling Management sub-group met for the first time. Unfortunately, a breakdown in communication meant that I did not hear of the meeting until after the event itself, and that no students were represented at the meeting.

Chaired by Alan Stephens, the Head of House Services (who is generally responsible for recycling issues across campus), the first main point of discussion were the terms of reference for the group. The group's aim is to "Assist the University Environmental Strategy Working Group with proposals, recommendation and develop policy for UWA waste management including, reduce, re-use or repair, recycle and responsible disposal of waste. The aim is to achieve and if possible over-achieve the requirements of all relevant environmental legislation."

I haven't recieved the minutes yet so I don't know the specifics, but the following agenda points that were discussed at the meeting offers some sense of the kind of things that were covered:

Purpose, scope, definition and responsibility of the sub group
Definition of recycling / waste covered by the sub group
Stakeholders (who is invited to attend)
What is not included – Genetically Modified Organisms, radioactive waste, etc.
Ideas for reducing, reusing and repair, recycling and waste disposal
Grant for recycling schemes
What are we doing now
List of recyclables
What do we want to achieve / targets
Education and awareness
Legislative compliance
List of recyclables
Build relationships with local organisations to promote and increase effectiveness

Um....

Every now and then we come across something that just leaves us speechless and dumbfounded, where no matter how much we think about it we just can't bring ourselves to mouth a coherent response.

I had one of those moments today as I read about a new air service starting today between Cardiff and Anglesey (with a hefty £400,000 subsidy from the Welsh Assembly Government) - a 45-min flight, twice daily on an eighteen-seater aircraft.

The service has been roundly criticised by some political parties, and perhaps obviously groups such as Friends of the Earth Cymru and WWF Cymru for its environmental impact - air travel, of course, being the highest carbon-emitting form of travel that there is. The other criticism is that it will only benefit a miniscule number of people for such a large public subsidy.

The chairman of Anglesey council, a Mr. J.W. Williams, ended up saying that "he sympathised with people who worried about the environmental impact of the service, but said that should be balanced with the fact that it would cut down on car use."

Speechless, I am.

What to do about this climate change business...

Part three of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report has now been released, which has focused on mitigating climate change - that is, what we can do to limit temperature increases to 2C by 2100, and how much it will cost to do so.

This report has been greeted euphorically with little hint that attempts at watering-down its content had worked, reflecting a startling degree of consensus over both science and economics. In its reading, average global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak by 2015 and start coming down immediately after to stay within an increase of 2.4C; peaking at 2020 will see a 2.8C increase and peaking at 2030 will expect an increase of 3C. Government representatives have signed off on the report, and so we must come to expect that they will act on it. Business as usual is not an option.

Courtesy of the BBC is a quick and easy breakdown of the various sectors for action and the most effective policy choices to be taken. Transport, taxation, waste, energy - cuts in each area need to be made, and they all have competing costs and benefits.

David Adam of the Guardian sums things up as such:
"And while lifestyle changes made by individuals get a mention for the first time, written heavy between the lines on each of the report's 35 pages is the message that it is the responsibility of governments to force through the required changes.

"And the longer they leave it, the more difficult and expensive it will be."

Voting ends....

I've cast my ballot(s), and I hope that you have too for these Welsh Assembly elections 2007. Turnout at the Waunfawr polling booth where I went to vote was said to be around 60%, which would appear to be a nice healthy number (given low historical turnout).

Who will govern Wales? It'll be a busy night, and answers might not be much clearer come the morning...

South Wales pipeline

Over the past few months, protests over a pipeline carving its way through the Brecon Beacons have been gathering pace, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a long feature on the issue in last week's Guardian, How green was my valley (ok, anything about Wales in the Guardian surprises me).

Here's the one-minute version of the issue:
- There is a new liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal at Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire (south-west Wales) for tankers to arrive from abroad - but then the LNG needs to get around the country and link into the existing network
- So, a very very long pipeline is being constructed to stretch the breadth of Wales to a terminal in Gloucestershire - very long it is, 200 miles and estimated to cost £840m (which really means that it will cost much more than that).
- The problem is that not only, at a time of having to face the reality of climate change there are big questions about this kind of money being pumped into further fossil fuel projects, but that this pipeline will stretch right through the Brecon Beacons National Park - an area, of course, for special natural conservation.
- Large swathes of national park land will have to be dug up in order to bury the pipeline and there will be some blasting with explosives too to clear the way.

The real gist of Paul Harris' article is of how the project has been forced through against local objections and concerns, dominated by London planning from the Department for Trade and Industry:
"To many people, the pipeline's arrival speaks volumes about what government and corporate power can pull off in parts of the UK that rarely catch the attention of the London-based media."

Fellow students have been / are / will be at a protest camp in Trebanos, undertaking direct action against the pipeline construction. The original plan called for the project to be completed by November, and, as the BBC reported last autumn, it costs something close to £2m for each additional month of delay - which, while not massive, is not small change either.

If you want further information about protest activities I can put you in touch with some South Wales-based colleagues who are following the situation closer than I am.

Unrelated Update: Closer to home, the DTI is being very very quiet (see Leila's blog, 30 April) on the outcome of its decision to license for oil & gas exploration in Cardigan Bay since it announced earlier in the year that it would be taking extra time, including consideration for environmental impact. A hint of holding back the bad news until after the election, maybe...?

Ooh! Linked by the Daily Post

A pleasant surprise to find that this blog is among 'our favorite blogs', a list of ten blogs in the Farming section of the Daily Post website.

The Daily Post is the main North Wales newspaper, and I join (or, rather cheekily, I am joined by) David Miliband MP and Glyn Davies AM's blogs too!