Pre Budget Talk (Jonathon Porritt)

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Pre Budget Talk

With one month to go before the Budget, the debate is hotting up about the desirability of the Chancellor announcing some kind of “green recovery” initiative.

There are all sorts of signals coming from the Treasury that there’s nothing left in the pot – but all sorts of initiatives urging the Chancellor to seize hold of this opportunity to demonstrate that behind all this talk about a low-carbon Britain there is some real substance.

The eloquence of the talk reaches ever greater heights. Get this lot:

"This transition to low-carbon is an environmental and economic imperative. It is also inevitable. There is no high-carbon future. Low-carbon is not a sector of an economy - it is an economy."
(Lord Mandelson, BERR)

"The science says we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% to avoid the most catastrophic and irreversible effects of climate change. We’ll have 20% of current emissions, with an economy that we want to be three times bigger. It’s not just a change, it’s a transformation."
(Ed Miliband, DECC)

"We can now build a new green economy. Rise to one of the greatest peace time challenges of all, that will not only help our country prosper, but will build a better, more secure and more sustainable world."
(Prime Minister Gordon Brown)

On that basis, you’d expect something more than another dribble of stuff along the lines that we had in the 2008 Pre-Budget Report. To do that, the Chancellor has first to persuade himself that some further stimulus package is both necessary and desirable. Then he has to determine the overall scale of such a package (the eminent US economist Paul Krugman has urged all OECD countries to commit up to 4% of annual GDP – which for the UK would be around £60 billion) and then to determine what share of the total package should be devoted to "sustainability-specific" investments.

And that’s where it gets really interesting. The NGOs are getting increasingly vocal about green tokenism: if the low-carbon, sustainability elements come in at less than 10%, say, then the 90% is, almost by definition, going to be "high carbon and unsustainable". That would hardly seem to fit with the green words from the Low Carbon Industrial Summit above.

According to the new HSBC report (‘A Climate for Recovery – the colour of stimulus goes green’), the current sustainability percentage here in the UK is less than 7%. Compare that with China or South Korea.

Country/Region	Fund $b	Period	Green Fund $b	% Green
Asia Pacific
Australia	26.7	2009-12	2.5	9.3%
China	586.1	2009-10	221.3	37.8%
India	13.7	2009		0%
Japan	485.9	2009 -	12.4	2.6%
South Korea	38.1	2009-12	30.7	80.5%
Thailand	3.3	2009		0%
Subtotal Asia Pacific	1,153.8		266.9	23.1%
Europe
EU	38.8	2009-10	22.8	58.7%
Germany	104.8	2009-10	13.8	13.2%
France	33.7	2009-10	7.1	21.2%
Italy	103.5	2009 -	1.3	1.3%
Spain	14.2	2009	0.8	5.8%
UK	30.4	2009-12	2.1	6.9%
Other EU States	308.7	2009	6.2	2.0%
Subtotal Europe	634.2		54.2	16.7%
Americas
Canada	31.8	2009-13	2.6	8.3%
Chile	4.0	2009		0%
US EESA	185.0	10 years	18.2	9.8%
US ARRA	787.0	10 years	94.1	12.0%
Subtotal Americas	1.007.8		114.9	11.4%
TOTAL	2,796		436	15.6%

Source: ‘A Climate for Recovery – the colour of stimulus goes green’ (HSBC, Feb09)

So if the Chancellor is going to do something in the Budget, it needs to be big. And that’s what the Sustainable Development Commission is going to be recommending in our forthcoming “Sustainable New Deal” paper.

This really is the moment. If not now (with only a year or so before the next General Election), then one really has to ask when. I’d hate to think of all those fine words just left hanging in the wind.

Posted by Jonathon Porritt on March 18, 2009 11:24 AM | Permalink

Comments (7)

Jonathan, as you well know, the words of those politicians are, as usual, simply hot air. Fossil fuels will continue as the main driver of global economies for decades.

Regards, Pete ridley, Human-made Global Warmng Agnostic.

Posted by Pete Ridley | March 19, 2009 8:36 PM

Hot news today is the availability of Ratan Tata’s no-frills Tata Nano, which at 100,000 rupees (about £1,370) should allow many millions of poorer Asian families to become car owners. Looks like another explosion in car ownership (like that caused by Ford in America 100 years ago) is about to hit the developing world. Although there will be “eco-friendly” versions available, these will be more, so much more fossil fuel will be required to run the more popular petrol version.

This will lead to much more CO2 and H20 being emitted, but not only through the significantly increase car ownership. Far better road infrastructure will have to be developed, meaning much greater use of cement, the manufacture of which creates enormous CO2 emissions (the cement industry contributes about 5% to global anthropogenic CO2 emissions).

This enormous increase in car ownership and road infrastructure in the developing world will render futile any attempts by developed countries to reduce global atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The posturing initiatives presently being trumpeted by the EU will make not the least impression. Thank goodness that the impact we have on global climates through our use of fossil fuels is negligible.

Regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Warming Agnostic

Posted by Pete Ridley | March 23, 2009 9:01 PM

The global recession provides an ideal opportunity to re-assess our carbon based economy. Lets hope the Budget can provide the "Sustainable New Deal" that the Commission is proposing.
One can only hope!

Gary
www.humanecologist.co.uk

Posted by Gary | March 24, 2009 2:29 PM

A couple of observations about this item:

Why are we even surprised? The EU sets aside €105 billion in its next budget for green projects (hence why the EU 'looks' good in the stats) but, without taking a breath, hosts an auction to pass on 86 worthy projects to the private sector as it says it doesn't have enough money to fund them all...

And I'm not entirely sure about the serendipity of one of the authors of global financial collapse pretending it has green credentials itself by publishing these figures... let's hope the money it spent gathering the data isn't partly responsible for the imminent loss of up to 2900 employees in the near future.

In 'Living Within Our Means', you state, "Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that managed to rescue the global banking system even as we allowed the natural world to collapse around us?" ... with the amount of hot air being expended in the political corner and no measurable action, it begs the question if there will actually be anyone left to remember us - period (cf. "The Age of Stupid")

Posted by Peter Wognum | March 26, 2009 11:00 AM

This is followed by the headline in the Times saying that the Governement is pulling out of wind energy because Iberdrola is reluctant to invest in renewables in the UK. so here we go, reverting to Policy and committing money back to coal and gas fired power stations. I despair!

I think the words 'lip' and 'service' spring to mind, with the meltdown of Global Capitalism and the need to reduce consumerism and try and be self sufficient, perhaps harnessing the Government Hot air might be more appropriate, it certainly seems to be a sustainable source of energy.if the Government is serious about renewables then Social and Taxation policy should encourage private individuals to be able to have freedom of choice to enjoy alternative energy sources. Encouraging people to use low energy lightbulbs is a start, but encouraging investmnet in renewables for major companies should also be at the top of the Governemnts agenda, who knows producing more wind turbines might actually replace all the lost jobs in the car sector.

Their needs to be a seismic shift in Public Education and Govt Policy before we understand that we are running out of fossil fuels and that economic growth and consumerism arent desirable or sustainable outcomes.

Posted by Len Jones | March 27, 2009 11:57 AM

Tom Peters wrote, "Don't let the recession distract you, corporate leaders, from the 'clean, green' issue. Its here to stay...and the wise corporation will take the lead, not just react."

This could have been written today, unfortunately it wasn't, he wrote it after reviewing a book called 'Costing the Earth' by Frances Cairncross 17 years ago. Cairncross's book is just as compelling today as it was back then just the figures are different, that is, they are much worse!

Ever the optimist...I still live and work in hope that action still speaks louder than words.

Posted by Mark Harrison | March 27, 2009 12:00 PM

Peter (Wognum), The EU is a politically driven organisation which, because it comprises politicians, says whatever it thinks the voters want to hear whilst pursuing its own agenda. Those who proclaim that future generations will say "we allowed the natural world to collapse around us?" are simply scare-mongering. The natural world is not collapsing, it is merely changing, as it has done since the beginning, with humans making changes that gradually improve human existence. Granted not everything that humans do is beneficial, but in the main we are all much more comfortable than we were in the past. Barring natural catastrophes (or a nuclear war) humans will be changing their environment and improving their enjoyment of life for millennia to come.

Len (Jones), Mark (Harrison) and Gary, we are fortunate to have available enormous quantities of "clean, green" fossil fuel available for decades to power global economic development without having to bother about developing much more expensive alternative sources of energy. Corporate leaders in the energy sector are preparing to exploit the enormous amounts of methane deposited under the oceans and in the permafrost. You don't get cleaner or greener than methane, which when fully oxidised produces nothing but those life-giving compounds H2O and CO2. The wise corporations are taking the lead in economic extraction of methane while at the same time applying for financial assistance from the taxpayer using the pretext of researching the sequestration of CO2. I refer you to my post of 24th Feb. on Jonathan's "Green New Deals" blog and to my comment of 31st March on Jonathan's "Renewables" blog.

Regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Warming Agnostic

Posted by Pete Ridley | April 2, 2009 10:58 PM

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