I’m grateful to Jim Rawles at Survivalblog.com for a link to a recent study which proposes an innovative approach to the calculation and allocation of required emissions reductions. The study, ‘Sharing global CO2 emission reductions among one billion high emitters’ was published on July 6th in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A PDF version can be found here. The authors, hailing from Princeton Environmental Institute, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei in Milan, seek to address accusations of unfairness inherent in current methods of allocating emissions reductions on the basis of national wealth.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, rich countries shoulder most of the burden for cutting emissions, while developing countries, including fast-growing economies like China and India, are not required to curb greenhouse pollution. Rich countries, notably the United States, claim this gives developing countries an unfair economic advantage. China, India and other developing countries argue that developed countries have historically spewed more climate-warming gases, and developing countries need time to catch up.

The authors’ concept of ‘‘common but differentiated responsibilities’’ refers to the emissions of individuals instead of nations. Using the income distribution of a country,  they estimate how its fossil fuel CO2 emissions are distributed among its citizens,  building up a global CO2 distribution. They then propose a simple rule to derive a universal cap on global individual emissions and find corresponding limits on national aggregate emissions from this cap. All  high CO2-emitting individuals are treated the same, regardless of where in the world they live. A further degree of fairness is introduced with the idea of an emissions ‘floor’ of one tonne of CO2 per person per year. The one tonne threshold exceeds the projected emissions of 2.7 billion individuals in 2030, and would insulate the lowest one-third of the world’s emitters from CO2 reduction strategies.

Co-author Shoibal Chakravarty says that by focusing on rich people everywhere, rather than rich countries and poor ones, the system of setting carbon-cutting targets based on the number of wealthy individuals in various countries would ease developing countries into any new climate change framework.
“As countries develop — India, China, Brazil and others — over time, they’ll have more and more of these (wealthy) individuals and they’ll have a higher share of carbon reductions to do in the future”
These obligations, based on the increasing number of rich people in various countries, would kick in as each developing country hit a certain overall level of carbon emissions. This level would be set fairly high, so that economic development would not be hampered in the poorest countries, no matter how many rich people live there.

Still a long way to go, obviously, but this sounds promising. Sadly, not everyone agrees. Here is what Jim Rawles has to say on the subject:

This is the sort of fallacious logic that foments envy, and inevitably class warfare. Yes, Americans do use a disproportionately large portion of the world’s natural resources. But we also create correspondingly more with those resources. The gross domestic product (GDP) of the US is tremendous. Here is an illustration. (California, just by itself is the sixth largest economy in the world.) Consider this: Why does Kenya Airlines have Boeing 747s in their fleet? Because someone in America builds them. Could those planes be made in Kenya? No, because they have neither the expertise nor the manufacturing infrastructure. Is this situation somehow “exploitive”? No! As my old friend “Jeff Trasel” says: “Please don’t tell me that I somehow magically ‘owe the world’ more because my ‘carbon footprint’ is larger. Well, so is my productivity!” I agree with Jeff. Carbon footprint calculations and swaps of carbon credits are nothing but voodoo economics and socialist scheming.

There’s such a lot that could be said about this ill-informed rant, but I lack the time, space and indeed the patience to get involved too deeply right now. All I would say is that Mr Rawles almost certainly hasn’t bothered to read the study for himself. Why else would he be banging on about the USA’s GDP, an economic measure at the national level, when this study is all about calculating emissions responsibility on an intra-national basis. You would think that Mr Rawles would welcome these proposals, given that he spends a lot of time bemoaning international influence over American national affairs, Federal meddling in State business, and State interference in individuals’ lives. Surely a methodology which leads individuals to take responsibilty for their own actions would be welcomed by a proponent of self-sufficiency, rugged individualism and personal freedoms within a framework of rights and responsibilities.

Environmental Photographer of the Year Award 2008, Natural World, runner up: ‘Green Steps’, Ly Hoang Long, Vietnam

A scary article in last Saturday’s Guardian outlines the extent to which rich nations are flexing their financial muscles around the globe to secure their food supplies. This week, Daewoo Logistics of South Korea has announced plans to acquire a 99-year lease on 1 million hectares of land in Madagascar. South Korea now owns 2.3 million hectares of land around the world, predominantly in Madagascar, Mongolia and Sudan. Against a background of fears over rising food prices, globalised greed and local corruption are riding roughshod over environmental concerns and the livelihoods of indigenous populations.

China is a close runner-up to South Korea in the land imperialism stakes, with over 2 million hectares worldwide in Australia, Laos, Phillipines, Russia, Cameroon, Uganda,Kazakhstan, Mexico and Cuba. While on the face of it China has plenty of land, desertification, soil erosion and water shortages are threatening its ability to feed its population thrugh domestic agriculture. According to a report from China’s bio-environment research team, erosion has cost the economy 200 billion yuan ($29 billion) since 2000. Each year 4.5 billion tonnes of topsoil are lost, at which rate harvests in China’s north-eastern breadbasket could fall by 40% in 50 years.

While here in the UK the idea of local food is gathering momentum, other nations think nothing of sourcing their food supplies from halfway round the world.

This post contains in its entirety an article by Sharon Astyk at The Silver Bear Cafe. I don’t usually do this, but I can’t improve on the original, and just posting a link wouldn’t do it justice either.

We Regret to Inform You…
Sharon Astyk

When climate change and peak oil thinkers run out of other things to worry about, there’s always the endless, inevitable debates about whether we are facing a “fast crash” or a “slow grind.” And I admit, I’m worried about my fellow environmentalists – because I think they are about to lose their favorite distraction. When no one was looking, we got an answer. Fast crash wins. And we’re in it now.

Wait a minute, you argue – that’s not right. If we were in a fast crash we’d be well on our way to living in a Kunstler novel. But we’ve still got cars, we’ve got food, things are slowing down, but at worst this looks like a slow grind – but the crazy lady at the blog is saying fast crash?!?!?

Before you argue with me (and you are both welcome and encouraged to), I’d like to post something a bit out of my usual style – it is simply a description of what has happened with food and energy in the last year – that’s all it is. Then tell me what you think – because it wasn’t until I began to write this introduction to the present food situation that I suddenly was struck by the fact that even a fast crash doesn’t always look fast when you live it – new normals arise and it turns out we assimilate faster than we panic.

So here we are – the “We regret to inform you that what you have imagined to be “civilization” is now falling apart” post. See if it strikes you the way it struck me.

I would also note two things. The first is that the general political consensus is that neither the food nor energy crisis will do anything but grow more acute anytime soon – we’re really in the early stages. And that this only covers the first 4 months of 2008.

In early 2008, the world’s food and energy train came off the rails. What was startling was that it didn’t happen either gradually or in a linear way – instead, things simply fell apart at an astounding rate, faster than anyone could have predicted without being accused of lunacy.

It started with biofuels and growing meat consumption rates. They drove the price of staple grains up at astounding rates. In 2007, overall inflation for food was at 18%, which created a new class of hungry, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. In 2008, the month to month inflation was higher than 2007’s annual inflation. At that rate, the price of food overall was set to double every other year. Rice, the staple of almost half the world’s population rose 147%, while wheat grew 25% in just one day. Price rises were inequitable (as was everything else) so while rice prices rose 30% in rich world nations like the US, Haitian rice prices rose 300%.

Haiti was an early canary in the hunger coal mine. Desperately poor, by early 2008, tens of thousands of impoverished Haitians were priced entirely out of the market for rice and other staples, and were reduced to eating “cookies” made of nutrient rich mud, vegetable shortening and salt to quiet their hunger pangs. Women stood on the street, offering their children to any reasonably well fed passerby, saying “Please, pick, take one and feed them.” Thousands of Haitians marched on Port Au Prince, yelling, “We’re hungry.” And indeed, the Haitian government was complicit, allowing food relief to rot on the wharves. But Haiti was just the start.

After riots over long bread lines threatened to destabilize Egypt, the Egyptian government set the army to baking bread for the hungry. Forty nations either stopped exporting grains or raised tariffs to make costs prohibitive. Food prices rose precipitiously as importing nations began to struggle to meet rising hunger. The UN warned that 33 nations were in danger of destabilizing, and the list included major powers including Pakistan, Mexico, North Korea India, Egypt and South Africa. Many of these hold nuclear weapons.

The crisis didn’t stop among the already-poor, however. An article in The Economist reported that the crisis extended well into the middle class – Joanna Sheeran, director of the World Food Project explained, “For the middle classes,…it means cutting out medical care. For those on $2 a day, it means cutting out meat and taking the children out of school. For those on $1 a day, it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating only cereals. And for those on 50 cents a day, it means total disaster.”

Up to 100 million people who had managed to raise their incomes above $2 a day found themselves inexorably drawn back to the world poverty level, while millions of those who called themselves “middle class” began, slowly, to realize that they were no such thing. Reports noted that many of the supposed middle class in rich world nations were actually the working poor who had overextended their credit to keep up appearances. And the appearances – and credit access – were fraying

In 2007, a major American newspaper reported the growing problem of seasonal malnutrition affecting poor children in the Northern US – the rising price of heating oil meant that lower class families were struggling to put on the table. Hungry, low weight children were unable to maintain their body temperature in chilly houses, and a vicious circle of illness, hunger and desperation ensued. Malnutrition bellies began to be regularly seen by pediatricians treating the urban poor in cold climates.

Shortages were a chronic problem in the poor world, but by early spring of 2008, they began to arrive in the rich world – despite Japan’s deep pockets, a shortage of butter and wheat reminded the rich world of its dependence on food import. Many of the supply problems were due to climate change and energy issues, as Australian dairy farmers struggled with high grain prices and the extended drought that destroyed their pastures.

Following up on anecdotal reports of limits at bulk warehouse stores, in late April of 2008 rationing went official. Many Costco stores were limiting purchases of flour, rice, cooking oil and other staples to avoid shortages – and the stores tracked purchases electronically to prevent customers from visiting other Costco stores. This was the first example of food rationing, but probably not the last – at least one financial analyst was predicting corn shortages in the fall of 2008.

The energy train and the food train were inextricably linked, and indeed directly (as the costs of diesel rose rapidly) and indirectly (rising energy costs created the biofuels boom) drove the food crisis. They were linked in other, complex ways as well – the housing collapse that threatened to plunge Europe and the US into a major depression was in part due to the high costs of commuting from suburban infrastructure. Exurban housing collapsed hardest, while housing closer to cities remained desirable – for a while.

While the food crisis in the poor world made headlines, the energy crisis there went almost unnoticed. More and more poorer nations simply could not afford to import oil and other fossil fuels, and began slowly but steadily to lose the benefits of fossil fuels. Nations suffered shortages of gas, electricity and coal. Tajikistan, experiencing a record cold winter found itself with inadequate supplies of heating oil and a humanitarian crisis. South African coal supplies were so short that electricity generation dropped back to intermittency.

Industrial agriculture, described as “the process of turning oil into food” began to struggle to keep yields up to match growing demand. Yield increases fell back steadily, with more and more investment of energy (and higher costs for poor farmers trying to keep yields up). Yield increases, which had been at 6% annually from the 1960s through the 1990s fell to 1-2%, against rapidly rising demand. Climate change threatened to further reduce yields in already stressed poor nations – Bangladesh struggled with repeated climate change linked flooding, the Sahelian African countries with growing drought, China with desertification.

All future indications were that both food and energy supplies would fail to keep up with demand. Unchecked (the only kind we’ve got) climate change is expected to reduce rice yields by up to 30%, and food production in the already starving Sahel is expected to be reduced by half. GMOs, touted as a solution, have yet to produce even slightly higher yields. Arable land is disappearing under growth, while aquifers are heavily depleted – 30% of the world’s grain production comes from irrigated land that is expected to lose its water supply in the next decades.

Meanwhile the costs of fossil fueled agriculture skyrocketed, with potash rising by 300% in less than a year. What should have been a boom for farmers was actually the beginning of an increasingly precarious spiral of high prices, high indebtedness and market volatility. Agricultural indebtedness rose dramatically.

Meanwhile, the ability of nations to transport food supplies began to be called into question. Early trucker protests were intermittent and largely ineffective, but real predictions of diesel shortages and a shortage of refining capacity made it a real possibility that food might not reach store shelves.

And so how does the story end? If you were reading this in a history book, what ending would you expect to see? Because just because the crash doesn’t quite read like a post apocalyptic novel doesn’t mean that we aren’t the new Po-Apoc (like Po-Mo, only darker) generation.

Sharon

www.sharonastyk.com

**********************************************************

I wish I’d written this.

Is it time for Alistair Darling to be put out with the trash? Criticism of his performance as Chancellor of the Exchequer began as soon as he accepted the poisoned chalice of succeeding Gordon Brown last year. Yesterday’s budget, Darling’s first, has been widely condemned for not living up to its advance billing as a ‘green’ budget containing radical measures to address climate change.

Climate change got a mention right at the top of his speech, but nothing that followed looks as if it will come close to doing anything useful to fix it.

Here are the main green measures announced yesterday, in no particular order:

• The worst polluting cars will be taxed a bit more, cleaner cars will be taxed a bit less.
• Electricity companies may have to buy all of their permits to emit carbon after 2012.
• Retailers who fail to restrict the use of disposable carrier bags will be forced to charge a levy on them.
• A new aircraft duty, charged per jet instead of per passenger, will raise 10% more revenue in its second year of operation.
• All new office buildings must be ‘zero carbon’ by 2019.
• From next year, the Budget will incorporate a ‘carbon budget’, setting out a 5-year plan for UK carbon emissions.

And that, apart from the usual increase in duty on booze and fags, was pretty much it. Feeble stuff, from an environmental standpoint, which has generated some understandable heat:

“It is still very unclear from a consumer and corporate perspective how the vast majority of carbon reduction will be delivered.”
(Frank Sangster, head of KPMG’s environmental tax and incentives group)

“This certainly was not a green Budget, at a time when both the domestic sector and industry needed a green Budget.”
(Gareth Stace, head of environment at the EEF manufacturers’ organisation)

“The chancellor promised to put sustainability at the heart of today’s announcement, but he has merely tinkered in the margins. He should have made it cheaper and easier for people to go green.”
(Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth)

“It’s clear the chancellor has huge holes in his accounts and is trying to hide an old-fashioned tax grab behind a bags and alcohol smokescreen.”
(Stephen Robertson, director-general of the British Retail Consortium)

The measures announced yesterday would achieve a 5% emissions reduction by 2015, well short of our obligation to cut emissions by 20% under EU proposals. The new green taxes will raise an extra £1.6bn this year, rising to £1.77bn by 2011. This masks the fact that the proportion of tax revenue coming from green taxes will actually fall very slightly to 6.91% in 2008-09.

The general consensus among financial commentators is that the Chancellor’s view of the world economy’s current problems, and Britain’s positioning to cope with them, is very optimistic. He forecast increased inflation and reduced growth, portraying Britain as simply a victim of global economic turbulence. He also forecast a marked increase in borrowing, which is worrying against a background of market turmoil and credit squeeze. In predicting a strong rebound for the UK economy next year, based on the most optimistic set of figures he could lay his hands on, he seems to be whistling in the dark with his fingers crossed.

Could it be that all the spin about a ‘green’ budget, and the inevitable disappointment when it turned out to be nothing of the sort, was just a ruse to distract us from the real problem? We have a world economy in real trouble, the UK may well get dragged down by forces outside its control, and the government doesn’t have a clue what to do about it apart from trying to plug some of the black hole in its finances with cynically-spun ‘green taxes’.

We should never forget that a healthy environment relies on a healthy economy. Environmental investment is traditionally first to go when money’s tight.

Shares in AIM-listed biofuels outfit D1 Oils plc (LSE: DOO.L – news) are showing more sharp falls this morning after a 36% drop on Friday. The company said the influx of heavily subsidised US biodiesel is putting the entire EU green fuel industry at risk. The US government is promoting the production and use of biodiesel for transport under the so-called B99 scheme, in which producers could claim a subsidy of up to $1 per gallon if they blend 99 pct biodiesel with 1 pct mineral diesel.

Massive exports of unfairly subsidised biodiesel are now threatening the EU green fuels industry by seriously eroding the available margin on refining vegetable oils and putting at risk jobs in both Europe and in developing countries that are able to produce sustainable biodiesel from crops such as jatropha curcas. Around 1 million tonnes of B99 biodiesel are believed to have been ‘dumped’ by the US into the EU this year. About 10% of that consisted of biodiesel produced from palm plantations planted on rainforest in Southeast Asia, blended in the US and then sold on to the EU.

‘If these practices are not stopped, there will be no biodiesel refining industry in Europe,’ said Karl Watkin, founder and non-executive director of D1 Oils.

Update: Karl Watkin, founder and former chairman, has resigned from his role as non-executive director of D1. In a statement, Watkin said he is quitting out of frustration over the investment community’s inability to differentiate D1′s strategy from that of the suppliers of palm, soya and rapeseed ‘whose biodiesel products have been well documented as being environmentally unsustainable.

”I am particularly disheartened by the plethora of so-called experts on climate change who fail to distinguish between jatropha and other non-sustainable biodiesel feedstocks.

‘This lack of differentiation, combined with the London Stock Exchange’s failure to address both the liquidity problems of AIM and the impact of shorting of illiquid stocks, have conspired to erode the value of D1″.

D1 Oils has teamed up with UK oil giant BP PLC for a $160 million biodiesel project that uses jatropha, an inedible oilseed bearing tree, as a feedstock. The joint venture, called D1-BP Fuel Crops Ltd, intends to plant 1 million hectares of jatropha in its first four years. Production is expected to start next year. D1 has started a consultation process with employees on the future of its Middlesbrough and Bromborough sites, as part of a review of its downstream refining and trading operations.

‘Imports of heavily subsidised biodiesel have eroded margins to the point where we have no choice but to consider how to reduce operating costs. We are taking this action to manage the business proactively in a difficult market,’ chief executive Elliott Mannis said.

The distortion effect of subsidies is magnified by EU targets specifying that 2.5% of all fuel sold from pumps must be obtained from renewable sources. One tonne of B99 from the US costs about $1200, while buying soya to produce your own costs $1400, with another $150 for processing costs. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see where the biofuel to satisfy our renewables obligations will come from.

D1 is a company that’s ticking all the right boxes in terms of sustainability, producing biodiesel from a non-food plant that they are planting in marginal and non-agricultural land in developing countries round the world. They are being put under severe pressure by market distortions caused by US subsidies for biodiesel, wherever it comes from: American corn, rainforest palm oil, who cares? It does make you wonder, though, what the US government thinks about their subsidised oil being exported, rather than going to meet domestic biofuel targets. Or is the US economy in such a desperate state that they’ll export anything for foreign currency?

Perhaps the UK should consider ‘tuning’ its tax rebates on biofuels to exclude these imports. I feel another trade war coming on.

Last month The Coffee House drew your attention to the
Worst EU Lobbying and Greenwash Awards 2007.
The winners were announced at a festive awards ceremony in the Witloof Cellar in Brussels on 4 December 2007.

Winner of the Worst EU Lobbying Award 2007

BMW, Daimler and Porsche – nominated together in the worst EU lobbying category – gained more than 30% of the votes. Their joint lobbying offensive, designed to water-down and delay the mandatory CO2 emission reduction targets proposed by the Commission after voluntary targets were not met, was deemed to be the worst and most deceptive by voters across Europe.

Winner of the Worst EU Greenwash Award 2007

The special greenwash prize for the most audacious attempts to gain unjustifiable green credentials was awarded to the German Atomic Forum, which received more than a third of votes cast. It was nominated for its campaign aimed at improving the image of nuclear energy. Under the slogan “Germany’s unloved climate protectionists” it featured images of nuclear power plants placed in unpolluted and unspoilt natural environments.

More than 6600 people across Europe took part in the online poll, which frankly was more than I would have expected. For a breakdown of the votes cast, click this link and also this one. Don’t forget to vote next year.

Washington has reported a fall in greenhouse gas emissions for 2006, the first year-on-year drop since 2001. The 1.5% reduction still leaves US emissions 15.1% above the key 1990 baseline. The Energy Information Administration attributed the fall to favourable weather conditions, higher energy prices and a greater use of non-fossil fuels and natural gas in generating electricity. Philip E. Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, said the previous one-year drop in 2001 was the result of an economic recession. Perhaps there’s another on the way.

In addition to reporting the total tonnage of gases emitted, the Bush administration compared the tons emitted to economic growth. Using this measure of “greenhouse gas intensity,” it reported a reduction of nearly 28% since 1990. Good to see Washington has finally invested in some creative statistics classes.

David Sandalow, an assistant secretary of State specializing in the environment during the Clinton administration, noted that some European nations with economies similar to that of the United States had achieved greater emissions reductions. Blimey, if European economies are similar to that of the US, we really are in trouble.

Los Angeles Times

The Australian reports that China is running out of fuel.
(‘Chinese tiger has nothing in tank‘).

• Police are guarding petrol stations in several inland provinces to prevent fights, as shortages of petrol and diesel are causing huge queues of trucks, buses and cars.
• In Kunming, capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan, 1000 trucks are stranded.
• A truck driver named Li told the Chuncheng Evening News he had been stranded at the Stone Tiger Gate petrol station for three days after searching for fuel in other places, but failing. He said his delivery date was way overdue.
• Another driver, at Geiju city, said a job that would have taken one day in the past, now took three: one on the road, two queuing for fuel.
• Nine days ago, a truck driver was reported to have been stabbed to death in central Anhui province after a row about queuing.
• A few days earlier, at Ezhou in Hubei province, 100,000 people were stranded, unable to get to work, because city buses had run out of fuel.

With economic growth running at 11.5%, China is the second-biggest consumer of oil after the US. Diesel imports in the first nine months of the year were up 46.5%, compared with the same period last year. Inflation is at a 10-year high of 6.5% and the Government is reluctant to let the price of oil ‘float’ in line with international markets. As inflation took off this year, the Government announced it was capping the prices of key commodities it still controlled, including oil, until the end of the year. However, under strong pressure from refiners and distributors, it conceded a 10% rise from this month. This still leaves the price well beyond international levels, and China has to import about half its oil, for which it must pay world prices.

Could good old-fashioned supply and demand act as a brake on China’s runaway growth? Now where did I put that old economics textbook?

Buy Nothing Day is almost upon us once again. On November 23rd in the US and Canada, the 24th for the rest of us, thousands of people around the world are planning to mark one of the busiest shopping days of the year by not spending any money.

You too can take a break from rampant consumerism and prove that a day without shopping won’t kill you. For more details see the UK BND site:

Everything we buy has an impact on our planet. Buy Nothing Day highlights the environmental and ethical consequences of consumerism. The developed countries – only 20% of the world population are consuming over 80% of the earth’s natural resources, causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage and unfair distribution of wealth.

As consumers we need to question the products we buy and challenge the companies who produce them. What are the true risks to the environment and developing countries? The argument is infinite – while it continues we should be looking for simple solutions – Buy Nothing Day is a good place to start.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY!
This year, Buy Nothing Day will be biggest 24-hour moratorium against consumerism ever. People in around the UK will make a pact with themselves to take a break from shopping as a personal experiment or public statement and the best thing is – IT’S FREE!!!

It’s official, we’re in trouble again. Or still. You’d be forgiven for thinking the latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is more of the same old same old. It is. The Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report is effectively a summary of three papers published earlier this year, and is intended to lay the foundations for worldwide agreement on emissions. You’ll have heard much of this before:

Snow and ice melting, sea levels rising by up to 0.59m by 2100, Arctic sea ice shrinking by 2.7% a decade, heatwaves and hurricanes increasing, human greenhouse emissions up by 70% between 1970 and 2004 and set to double by 2030, atmospheric CO2 at its highest level for 650,000 years, up to 30% of species at risk of extinction.

Despite all the doom and gloom, there’s still a surprising degree of confidence that if decisive action is taken now we can mitigate the worst of the projected impacts. In particular, not only do we have current or imminent technologies that will enable us to do this, but prompt action will be cost-effective and will have a minimal economic downside. In other words, it’s possible and it’s affordable.

It seems the UK government is having trouble balancing the books to make this happen. On Saturday the Guardian reported that DEFRA, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is planning reductions in key environmental services to generate savings of at least £300 million. The cuts are driven by the huge costs of a series of recent disasters such as foot and mouth disease, severe flooding, and mismanagement of agricultural subsidy reforms. All fifty DEFRA agencies are expected to be affected, hitting areas such as National Parks, sustainable development, forestry, fisheries, energy saving, waste management, environmental protection and, last but not least, the fight against climate change.

Coinciding with the publication of the Climate Change Bill and constant re-affirmation of emissions commitments, the conclusion must be that the government is struggling to meet its targets. Concentrating efforts on climate change and neglecting wider environmental obligations is bad news for nature conservation, with Natural England facing budget cuts of 30% for new conservation projects. Spending cuts are under consideration for some of the country’s most valuable wildlife sites.

It’s time that someone realised that it’s not just about carbon, stupid. Making environmental policy around a single issue is short-sighted and short-term thinking. We must continue to support our natural resources, our habitats and wildlife, to keep them robust and resilient against the effects of climate change. Without a holistic view of the environment , we may win the battle to reduce carbon emissions, but we will lose our natural heritage. A landscape consisting of nothing but windmills set in fields of biofuel source crops is not somewhere I would want to call home.

Summary for Policymakers of the AR4 Synthesis Report

“Climate change department faces £300 million cuts” (Guardian)