It's clear that while the rest of the world is powering up with renewables, the UK is being left behind.
It’s clear that while the rest of the world is powering up with renewables, the UK is being left behind
So on Sunday we heard the rather grandly titled Lima Call for Climate Action: considerably less than we’d hoped for, but not as bad as we might have feared.
It’s a small step towards the next UN summit in Paris in 12 months’ time.
What is to be applauded is that we do have an agreement on paper and signed up to; it would have been disastrous to have left Lima without one.
And it is worth noting that the existence of this next step very much reflects the wishes of the British people: a Populus poll last month found that 73 per cent want a global climate deal and 66 per cent want immediate action on climate change.
But it is clear, as Greens/EFA climate change spokesperson Bas Eickout has said, that the talks are lagging behind the real world economic, social and technical progress.Lord Stern rightly identifies one critical area of debate that has been neglected by this deal – assistance for developing nations from richer states to ensure that new infrastructure is as low carbon as possible.
Equally, it failed to ensure that there will be independent, rigorous assessment of nations’ promises and plans to cut greenhouse gas.
Where there has been progress is in Lima’s acknowledgement that states can no longer, as in the Kyoto process, be simply divided into developed and developing.
There is some progress too on acknowledging the damage already being done by climate change, and the damage that is further threatened to small island and other vulnerable states.
But this is lacking the vision, the strength, the commitment to real change that the state of the climate, the warnings of the scientists and the evidence of our own senses, demands.
We need leaders that take a global, long-term perspective and take the actions necessary to protect our planet now and for the future – not continue to think in terms of the profit interests of fossil fuels, companies who continue to exert a hugely damaging influence over national and international politics and policy.
It’s not what the public or scientific community wants or deserves.
But it is worth focusing on the fact that the UN talks, although essential to establishing the ground rules for the future, aren’t the only – or even the chief – way of making progress on the ground.
We’re seeing real advances in unilateral and bilateral action already, outside of the UN framework. China is one of the real, if quiet, success stories. China’s coal use – a critical element of greenhouse gas emissions, is already falling, well ahead of schedule.
If the driving force is as much the critical health issue of choking air pollution as climate change, that scarcely matters – what is key is the direction of travel.
And renewables are already a major part of its supply – more than 30 per cent of installed capacity and 20 per cent of generation.
The progress in Germany, Denmark, Spain and other European states has been more noted – they’re all seeing that renewables and energy conservation are the way forward.
There is also bilateral progress – most notably the agreement between China and the US on capping emissions.
When it comes to Britain, however, there’s little to cheer. Enthusiasm for the tidal project in Swansea Bay (the first of five lagoons that in a decade could supply nine per cent of our electricity needs) from the Lib Dem Energy Secretary is encouraging, although it is worth remembering this is the man who said “I love shale gas” – twice, in case anyone missed it the first time.
Campaigners up and down the country are right now battling cold, rain and often aggressive policing to protect their local communities, and the globe, against the threat of fracking, even while there’s rising acknowledgement of the financial risk of the carbon bubble.
With the right support, British solar panels could power 18 million homes and contribute up to £75bn to the UK economy, yet government policy is undermining the employment and energy security benefits of going all out for solar power.
It is clear that while the rest of the world is powering up with renewables, the UK is being left behind, and in the economically, socially and environmentally critical area of energy conservation, we’re going backwards – building homes today that demand immediate retrofitting to make them warm, comfortable and affordable to heat.
There’s a year to go to the Paris talks and less than five months to go until Britain gets a new government.
It’s clear that our new government is going to have to act fast so that we can go into the UN talks with our heads held high, and as a leading figure promoting a binding, genuine global deal to tackle the pressing threat of climate change to our civilisation and our planet.
Natalie Bennett is the leader of the Green Party. Follow her on Twitter
45 Responses to “The Lima climate talks: a small step forward, a long way to go”
Leon Wolfeson
Do you care about the environment, or are you interested in subsiding “renewables” blindly?
Oh right, stupid question. Keep trying to massively increase power costs, use “smart” meters to routinely disconnect poorer areas and so on.
Every solar panel on a roof here means the poor pay more for energy, and will need to cut their usage – their basic usage. That’s lead to the abolition of plans which don’t have high standing orders, meaning that far more poorer people will need to “voluntarily” disconnect their utilities. Rejoice, your plans are working!
David Lindsay
We need an approach to climate change which protects and extends secure employment with civilised wages and working conditions, which encourages economic development around the world, which upholds the right of the working classes and of non-white people to have children, which holds down and as far as practicable reduces the fuel prices that always hit the poor hardest, and which refuses to restrict either travel opportunities or a full diet to the rich.
That includes the full compatibility between, on the one hand, the highest view of human demographic, economic, intellectual and cultural expansion and development, and, on the other hand, the most active concern for the conservation of the natural world and of the treasures bequeathed by such expansion and development in the past.
martin c
I work for a company which installs Solar, my job is to work out the financial benefits of the current scheme for the potential customer, and to sell this to them if they wish to take advantage. I am aware that the company who provide our panels can provide a solar roof, in place of tiles. The cost of installing this system instead of a tile roof is negligible. So what I genuinely cannot understand is why the government are not incentivising developers to use this system on all new build properties. Surely this is an obvious solution, council planners could insist on it if necessary.
Leon Wolfeson
So more massive rate hikes, with mandatory high-cost systems for housing to discourage building. Woo!
Leon Wolfeson
So you support nuclear power then.