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A green thread emerging at the conference
Posted by benet on 17 September 2007.
The Lib Dems are promising this conference will have a green thread running through every debate: from transport and energy, to international development and planning. It is early days – I haven’t even been into the conference hall proper yet – but the agenda looks good and seems to support this. This morning, they are debating the Party’s radical proposals to make the UK carbon neutral by 2050. This is exciting stuff, and exactly the kind of ambition we need if Britain is going to lead the world in the fight against climate change.
There is no doubting the passion of Lib Dem activists about this. At the Climate Clinic reception on Sunday night (sponsored by MTV), there was a loud cheer when Ming Campbell said again that they would never support building new nuclear power stations. The question is whether the Lib Dems can influence the debate so that Cameron and Brown adopt equally radical policies. They really struggle to get cut-through on these issues.
Earlier, the Climate Clinic proper opened with a WWF-UK debate on fighting climate change and ensuring social justice. In other words, how to make sure it is not only the poor who are hit by green taxes and measures on energy efficiency. It is a critical question, especially here in the UK. If green measure hit the least well off, leaving the multimillionaires alone, no government will ever support them.
There were some good ideas discussed, including block tariffs for energy prices (so you pay very little for the first block of energy you use, and more as you increase your consumption). This is a really thorny issue, and I didn’t get any real inspiration that anyone had the answers. It strikes me we need to begin to discuss the more fundamental questions about basic consumption. Chris Huhne – the Lib Dem environment spokesman – touched on this when he started talking about obesity. But it is a big subject and politicians will hesitate before discussing it.
As for me, I was up first thing this morning to talk energy policy with Martin Horwood MP, before sharing a platform at lunchtime to talk about decentralised energy. Hopefully I will update a bit later today.