World Environment Day - 5th June 2007

Written by Richard Burt, Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for West Worcestershire on Tue 5th Jun 2007

I want take the opportunity of World Environment Day this week to outline to our readers the proposals of Britain's greenest major party - the Liberal Democrats.

Although we have heard a lot from both David Cameron and Gordon Brown about the importance of climate change, hard solutions have been conspicuous only by their absence. All the parties are agreed about the need for a climate change bill to set a long-term framework for our efforts to decarbonise the economy, but targets are only part of the answer. If targets solved problems on their own, we would be the best governed country in the world. Only the Liberal Democrats have brought forward any significant plans to change our behaviour. So far we have made three main proposals to tackle the problem of carbon emissions.

The Green Tax Switch: If we do not tackle the problems caused by cars and planes there can be no serious plan to reduce emissions. With a steeply graduated vehicle excise duty, newly purchased low carbon cars would pay nothing while gas-guzzlers would pay £2,000 a year. Our reforms of aviation duty would levy a tax on the emissions - whether a passenger or freight flight - regardless of the number of passengers. That would encourage fuller flights and a shift to fuel efficient aircraft.

Greener Homes: Our average energy bill is £385 a year more than the average bill in Sweden, even though January temperatures there are 7 degrees Celsius lower than ours. We want low carbon building standards for all new homes by 2011, and a comprehensive upgrading plan for our existing housing stock. That would fund serious cuts in carbon emissions with energy mortgages and change the incentives on energy companies to make more money by selling less, not more, energy.

Greener Electricity: We have also set out firm proposals for generating our electricity without resort to nuclear power which, with all its costs and risks, would tend to compete with, rather than complement, renewable energy. Renewables need to be matched with a variable power source, like gas-fired or coal-fired stations, rather than inflexible nuclear which is either on or off. That is why we are stressing the importance of carbon capture and storage as the only intermediate solution before a fully renewable world.

Voters know which party has been concerned with green issues for longest, and they know a fake when they see one. I firmly believe that, as climate change rightly soars up the political agenda, people will go for the original and not the copy.