Search
Feeds
Recent Posts
- test
- The Standing of Sustainable Development in Government
- Leaders will be shocked into climate action
- US position on Copenhagen may be treaty-wrecking
- George Monbiot, The Guardian & population
- £10 million will fund best low-carbon community initiatives
- Cadbury fights for "principled capitalism"
- Sarkozy launches crusade against obsession with growth
- NHS 'Fit for the Future' Report
- My debt to Teddy Goldsmith
- Looking back on nine years at the SDC
- Sandbrook Lecture
- Ashden Awards
- Nuclear comes clean
Categories
- Aviation
- China
- Climate change
- Consumption
- Crime
- Economics
- Energy
- Government
- Health
- Housing
- News
- Politics
- Population
- SD History
- Society
- Sustainable Food
- Transport
- USA
- Waste
Archives
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
Articles
Other Blogs
News Links
Organisations
« Sustainability on the political agenda | Main | Transport and the budget »
Government and the low carbon economy
The response to Peter Mandelson’s rather obvious point that Government is going to have to take a more hands-on role in shaping a low-carbon industrial strategy has been extraordinary.
As if this marked some ideological reversion to old Labour at its command-and-control worst back in the 1970s!
Work it out, guys. In the shortest possible period of time, we’ve got to move from an economy almost totally dependent on fossil fuels to one in which fossil fuels will be bit-part players in the energy mix. A 34% reduction in CO2 by 2020 (which the Government will announce as its interim target tomorrow) is just a taste of things to come.
Which makes the debate about market-led or regulation-led interventions all but irrelevant. Markets only work when governments shape those markets to ensure the desired objectives – in this case, an ultra low-carbon economy. “Getting a realistic price on every tonne of CO2 “, to use Nick Stern’s phraseology, is of course a market mechanism – but getting us to that realistic price as fast as possible will be driven by governments not by markets left to their own devices.
On which point, cracking good piece by Nick Stern in the Times today, laying down the law for Alistair Darling in terms of tomorrow's budget. Any new coal-fired power stations to have “carbon capture and storage” mandated by government as a condition of planning; government to re-think the third runway at Heathrow if the Committee on Climate Change indicates it can’t be done within the new carbon budgets; clear government leadership on efficiency and renewables, and a clear commitment to use public expenditure to help drive the new low-carbon industrial strategy. A lot of public expenditure: up to 1.5% of GDP.
Part of which seemed to be what Peter Mandelson was saying about the need for a new kind of “low-carbon industrial activism”. However, I’m not sure he’s quite got Nick Stern’s equally powerful message about avoiding “lock-in” in terms of big, clunky, carbon-intensive infrastructure and investments.
But perhaps we’ll hear more about all that tomorrow.
Posted by Jonathon Porritt on April 21, 2009 2:44 PM | Permalink
Comments (1)
Please see my submission to Jonathan's blog "The budget green vs sustainable"
Regards,
Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Warming Agnostic
Posted by Pete Ridley | April 23, 2009 11:26 PM
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.jonathonporritt.com/jpblog/mt-tb.cgi/94