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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
Green Building Bible, fourth edition (both books)
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Politics: Are local Politics disconnected from National Politics on 'green' issues?

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthorjon
    • CommentTimeNov 6th 2009
     
    Anyone catch the Parliamentary debate yesterday?

    It struck me how disconnected local Policy is to national Policy. In my area we're planning to increase carbon emissions by 2031 (projections show a minimum of 4% increase according to the Regional Agency) and the local politicians refer to climate change as a 'green issue'. I listened to Simon Hughes (same party as my MP and the local politicos) who seemed to have such a different perspective on the whole thing that I wondered if he's actually in the same party as my local mob.

    Is it the same everywhere else? (or is it just us)
    • CommentAuthorludite
    • CommentTimeNov 6th 2009
     
    It's the same:cry:
    • CommentAuthorjon
    • CommentTimeNov 7th 2009
     
    That's sad. Can no-one claim to live in an area where the disconnect doesn't exist?
  4.  
    Just got a ballot paper from my union for election of the new leader of Welsh labour. In none of the 3 candidates' canvassing letters was there a single mention of the environment, climate change or green issues at all!

    I binned it, and won't be voting labour next time.

    Henry
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeNov 9th 2009
     
    Proud Dad - my daughter Natalie Foster has gained praise and formal recognition within the Planning system, for pioneering Local-Policy writing with Stroud District Council, in which the Climate consequences of options are quantified and spelt out, so NIMBYs now have to answer to their neighbours, the District and the planet, for their consultation representations.
    • CommentAuthorjon
    • CommentTimeNov 12th 2009
     
    Hi Tom

    Can you give a link as to the sort of Policies she's developed?

    It would be nice to have an example of an authority that's doing something: Very difficult to argue with a local authority that's planning to increase carbon emissions if they have the counter-argument of "that's what everyone else is doing".
    • CommentAuthorSimonH
    • CommentTimeNov 12th 2009
     
    There are signs of movement. Lichfield DC used to be climate skeptic. Now we are in the process of setting up a forum for business/community groups & local gov to tackle things head on. Don't know if it was a change of members or a change of mind, due to evidence / national policy, but carbon reduction has also been adopted as one of the council's list of official targets to report on.

    2 years ago I thought the only thing they were interested in was recycling (for which they had beacon status). Nice, but not the big energy suckers like home heating and personal transport use. Although little has been done to date, they are at least starting and learning how to invovle the community. They are supporting us on plans to carry out a series of energy assessments, promoting insulation, looking for other opportunities to become part of research / demonstrator projects.

    Simon
    • CommentAuthorjon
    • CommentTimeNov 12th 2009
     
    "They are supporting us on plans to carry out a series of energy assessments, promoting insulation, looking for other opportunities to become part of research / demonstrator projects."

    How are they supporting Simon? The biggest problem with research/demonstrators is that, in practice, planning permission is rarely given for them. Over my way one of the local councils is supporting its local transition group to prepare a LCCC submission, but, looking at the documentation this morning (I was asked to help), the local transition group have no chance whatsoever of getting the funding (very very poor documentation).

    This makes me wonder why the local council are supporting the application: They must know it will fail so I suspect they are supporting it to be able to say that they have supported it (and no other reason). Trouble with this sort of semi-political strategy is that the local group are spending time on the project and may get disillusioned when they fail at the first hurdle.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMar 20th 2010 edited
     
    I was at a Transition meeting about 3 years ago and the local MP, Matthew Taylor, who incidentally took a non party political viewpoint to the whole thing, explained why it takes so long for a statement from government (generally about 2.5 years) to be acted on by the local authority. It was very informative and he agreed that is was frustrating for everyone.

    Another point possibly worth raising is that 'Climate Change' or 'Carbon Reduction' is often used when energy reduction should be used. With our current set up, energy reduction reduces CO2 but CO2 reduction need not reduce energy use.

    Councils write a lot of reports I find.
    • CommentAuthorjon
    • CommentTimeMar 20th 2010
     
    Forgotten about this thread! The local Transition group did get rejected. They also got disillusioned.

    Energy reduction; true but not so sure: From, Climate Change Act:

    PART 1
    CARBON TARGET AND BUDGETING
    The target for 2050
    1 The target for 2050
    (1) It is the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the net UK carbon for the year 2050 is at least 80% lower than the 1990 baseline.

    Given that it's now a duty, I think you can probably use carbon reduction?

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