Author Archives: Matthew Lockwood

In the UK the new coalition Government is beginning to swing the spending axe, and despite that fact that this will apparently be the “greenest government ever”, low carbon innovation is not spared. A number of technology support programmes have been axed, including £12.6 million from the Carbon Trust and £2.9 million from the Low Carbon Technology Programme. This comes on top of the culling of the Regional Development Agencies, which have been champions of low carbon innovations from electric vehicles to carbon capture and storage. Continue reading →

Would more security and more equality help improve climate politics? One recent analysis that has attracted a lot of attention – The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett – argues that more inequality leads to greater consumerism and individualism, which in turn is a block on co-operation to tackle climate change. Meanwhile, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger argued in their book Break Through that a precondition for a concern with environmental sustainability is genuine economic security.

Is there evidence to support these ideas? Continue reading →

What’s the right response to the politics of climate change – realism about the current impasse or holding out for the change that must surely come? A couple of weeks ago foreign policy expert Alex Evans posted a long piece on the Global Dashboard website, partly in response to an argument he was having with Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute at a recent ippr event. Here’s our perspective. Continue reading →

As we said a couple of weeks ago, the Gulf oil spill is having an impact on American thinking about energy in a way that climate change has simply failed to do so far. Now Obama has declared the Deepwater Horizon disaster an “environmental 9/11”, and called for a “new future” based on clean energy. The pollution from the Gulf spill is visible, its impacts are directly attributable and immediate, and it is understood by all to be affecting livelihoods across a swathe of Southern states. In all of these ways it is different from climate change, and shows how energy policy remains dominated by energy security and pollution considerations.

2-3 million litres of oil a day are now gushing out of the ruptured pipe at the base of the BP platform in the Gulf of Mexico, and it could get worse before a solution is found. Attempts so far to stem the flow have failed, and oil slicks are now threatening beaches in Louisiana. The volume far exceeds the US’s worst previous oil spill – the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, but the impact of the Gulf spill will not be just about how much hits the beaches. For this disaster is not in a distant state beyond Canada, but very visibly right in America’s backyard. The Gulf fishing industry is already hit hard – if storms push the spill towards Florida’s coast, a $60 billion a year tourism industry is not going to be happy.

But what is really striking about the Gulf disaster is Continue reading →

So EC climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard today finally published a paper backing away from a proposal that Europe commit itself to a 30% reduction in emissions by 2020 (despite rumours to the contary on the front page of The Times, subsequently taken to task by George Monbiot!).

The economic slump since 2008 means that the existing 20% target now looks a lot easier and cheaper to achieve. The financial crisis also took the steam out of the EU ETS carbon market. With Greece in fiscal meltdown and austerity measures under way in Spain, Portugal and now the UK, Europe may well see a serious double dip recession, making even a 30% target much less scary than it seems. A shift up to 30% would also have resuscitated the carbon market. But of course there has been resistance, not least from Germany and eastern Europe, but also the Confederation of British Industry here in the UK. All of this is a reminder of how politically difficult a direct target-led approach is.

On the face of it, this looks like a real blow for those who think Europe should try to rescue its global climate leadership in the wake of the Copehagen fiasco. However, Continue reading →

Hi all – we went away for a little while there, due to various pressures at work and home. But expect to see postings much more frequently on Political Climate from now on. Coming up:

• The limits to environmentalism Part 3 – we review Tim Jackson’s Prosperity without Growth
• A Tale of Two Milibands
• Why we need a low-carbon version of fair trade
• The case for more public borrowing (are these guys crazy!?) for low carbon investments

We’ll also start looking more seriously at what the new coalition government is going to do. Later today we’ll blog on the will-they-won’t-they story of the European 30% emissions reduction target.

A few days ago Duncan Green from Oxfam posted a thoughtful review of a thoughtful book – Why We Disagree About Climate Change published last year by Mike Hulme, a climate modeller from the University of East Anglia. At the core of the book is the idea that climate change will bring about a transformation in human life that is far more profound than most people realise, certainly those with their eyes down on the immediacy of policy. Duncan’s review picks up on a quote from the book and goes to on interpret that quote: Continue reading →