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New Labour and carbon calculators
Posted by bex on 20 June 2007.
While we think it's lovely that Defra has launched a carbon calculator, we can't help but notice that a few other organisations have already developed similar tools (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, say).
I'm not knocking carbon calculators (they're useful tools and lots of us here in the office use them), and obviously personal action to help combat climate change is invaluable. But really, is this what David Miliband should be spending his time and our money on?
The calculator, Miliband tells us, is special because, after calculating our emissions, it explains what we can do to reduce them. And because people using it can make suggestions on how to improve it.
A better use of tax payers' money might have been a New Labour carbon calculator. After showing that carbon emissions have risen since New Labour came to power in 1997, it could then suggest a raft of new and urgently needed policies to reduce the UK's emissions. Sorting out the energy system so that our power plants don't waste two thirds of the energy going into them, say. Or maybe investing in a low carbon transport system. Or bringing in minimum efficiency standards on appliances (banning inefficient light bulbs alone could close down two power stations). Or, perhaps, stopping the rush of new coal power plants now in planning in the UK. Or stopping the massive and unsustainable growth in aviation emissions.
Just a suggestion.
New labour
I have to agree with the above blog. It seems like a token gesture, the illusion that New Labour care about the issue of global warming when in actual fact the Blair government is about to hand over to Gordon Brown a 2% increase in UK emissions!
I will be in Parliament square on 30th June to join the Campaign against Climate Change demo to make sure that Brown gets the message - that this is unacceptable - and that he hopefully implements the ideas expressed above.
carbon calcs
but which carbon calculator to use??? They all give very different results, and none of them take account of all of the co2 we are responsible for as individuals, and the potential lifestyle changes we can make.
I have started investigating which is the best in terms of ease of use, comprehensiveness and credibility, but I could use some help.
I would have thought calculating and baselining our individual CO2 emissions was an essential first step to making measurable improvements. I don't think this is tokenism at all, but its pointless unless it is fairly accurate.
Come on Greenpeace - give us a recommendation!!!
Thanks
now there's the question...
Evaluating carbon calculators has been on our to do list for a long, long time but doing it properly is such a major undertaking that we keep putting it off until things are a little less busy. And things never seem to be a little less busy...
In some preliminary research I did, I stumbled across this pdf, which you might find interesting. It's a study by the Environmental Change Institute (Oxford Unversity) looking at the "carbon effectiveness" of various online calculators (they measure presentation and usability, data and info inputs, results, feedback, guidance, context and methodology).
Personally I really value comprehensiveness and accuracy - so many calculators seem to omit so many lifestyle factors. But I don't have a specific calculator that I'd recommend at the moment. You're right, we should look into it. Duly bumped back up towards the upper half of my to do list...
Bex
gpuk