David Cameron’s pledge to be the ‘greenest government ever’ goes on trial with the green-o-meter

• See our green-o-meter interactive
• How we set the green-o-meter

Last May, David Cameron promised the coalition would be the “greenest government ever”. This year environmentguardian.co.uk is going to track his progress.

The current rating on the green-o-meter is a light-hearted attempt to track the serious matter of how the coalition is faring. It assesses the government’s delivery on all aspects of the environment, from climate change, wildlife and conservation to energy efficiency, transport and renewable power, as covered by the stories below.

Swing history

21 October 2011: Damian Carrington, head of environment, writes: David Cameron’s detoxifying pledge to be the greenest government ever is in mortal peril. The latest blows including cuts to support for clean, sustainable energy and the collapse of the UK’s only bidder for £1bn to build the UK’s first carbon capture and storage demonstration plant.

5 October 2011: Damian Carrington, head of environment, writes: Bong! Down the green-o-meter plunges, from 3.5 to 2.5. Why? Principally because of the low-carbon clanger the Chancellor George Osborne dropped at the Conservative party conference, wrongly blaming green taxes for soaring energy costs and backing away from UK climate leadership. David Cameron’s speech gave only the most cursory, passing mention to green policies. The ludicrous pledge to raise the motorway speed limit to 80mph and the unnecessary squandering of £250m on bring back some weekly bin collections were also negative marks, as was the bungle over the renewable heat incentive. I attended all four political party conferences – yes the Greens in Sheffield too. Green issues were relatively low key at all of them, though Labour’s pledge to break the big six energy companies’ “stranglehold” was a rare standout idea. However, only the Conservatives appeared to be actively moving away from green issues. Despite the energy and climate change ministers continuing to push forward big policies, the environment department remains feeble. But it is the change of tone from the two men running the world’s sixth biggest economy that matters. You don’t become the greenest government ever by telling people the nation’s green ambition is to be mediocre.

13 July 2011: Damian Carrington writes: The UK’s electricity system has started on the road to major reform. It’s a huge step forward from the free-for-all market we have now, which kept prices down for a while, but utterly failed to invest in the future. Chris Huhne’s plan is not as strong as it needs to be on renewables and cutting energy use – that’s less pressing if you have bet much of your money on nuclear, as Decc have. There’s also a lot of detail to work out. All in all, up goes the green-o-meter to 3.5.

6 July 2011: Damian Carrington writes: The UK government not only met its 10:10 campaign pledge to cut the carbon emissions from its own operations by 10% in a year, it achieved a cut of 14% and promised a 25% cut by 2015. That’s real action and leading from the front. Up goes the green-o-meter to 3.0.

14 June 2011: It could have been a double whammy for the environment department, with two flagship policies arriving within a week: the natural environment white paper and the national waste review. Both laudably aimed to redefine attitudes, to valuing the natural world and dumping rubbish, respectively. But, concluded, Damian Carrington, neither delivered. Back down to a below-par 2.5.

23 May 2011: Another cabinet battle, another green win. Nick Clegg announces the details of the green investment bank, revealing a strong, independent bank with £3bn guaranteed for starters. The GIB can still only borrow from 2015, but overall the news suggests supporters of the green economy are defeating the “dark forces” of the old economy in the Treasury. It’s enough to push the green-o-meter up from 2.5 to 3.0.

17 May 2011: After a cabinet battle, prime minister David Cameron committed the UK government to accepting official advice to set an ambitious and legally binding target for the 2020s, equivalent to a 50% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2027. Damian Carrington wrote: “Winning that argument was a significant political victory. But in terms of green policy that will deliver an economy fit for an evermore crowded and consuming planet, it was only a disaster avoided. Nonetheless, with politics being the art of the possible, the green-o-meter moved up half a notch, to recognise a step in the right direction.”

23 March 2011: UK budget day was a green catastrophe, sending the green-o-meter plummeting to 2.0, an all time low. George Monbiot called it “the blackest budget in living memory, from the team that claims to be the greenest government ever.” Damian Carrington’s analysis of the green investment bank that can’t borrow, the boosts for motoring and flying and a feeble carbon floor price, concludes: “There was a golden chance to use the wreckage of the recession to build a greener, cleaner and more sustainable economy, creating jobs and tackling climate change. But when it mattered, the old politics and the old economics won.”

11 March 2011: The green-o-meter moved up another notch to 3.5, following the government’s ‘green week’, which delivered £860m for clean, green heating, continued promises to cut the government’s own emissions and pumped up the pressure on other departments to accelerate the green agenda.

17 February 2011: We moved the green-o-meter up from 2.5 to 3, off the back of David Cameron’s u-turn on the forest sell-off in England, despite recent news of a 40% cut to the Carbon Trust’s budget.

31 January 2011: We moved the green-o-meter down from 3 to 2.5, because of the detail contained in the government’s forest consultation and news that the Energy Saving Trust is to have its funding cut by half.

18 January 2011: We moved the green-o-meter down from 3.5 to 3, following John Vidal’s expose of government spinning on the state of UK wildlife and nature reserves and reader feedback on Damian Carrington’s blog.

Green

• Chris Huhne promises Britain will speed up switch to green energy

• Cancún agreement rescues UN credibility but falls short of saving planet

• Nagoya biodiversity deal restores faith in UN

• UK government launches £5,000 electric car grant scheme

• Decc survives the spending review

• Feed-in tariffs dodge spending review axe

• Cameron pledges to cut government emissions 10% in 12 months

• Coalition agreement leads BAA to scrap third runway at Heathrow

• Electricity market reforms pave way for renewable energy

• ‘Green deal’ for energy-efficient homes begins parliamentary journey

Not green

• Businesses and campaigners attack coalition’s environmental record

• More than 1,000 flood defence schemes left without government funding

• ‘Bonfire of the quangos’ threatens climate change committee

• Energy Saving Trust funding cut by half

• For sale: All of our forests. Not some of them, nor most of them – the whole lot.

• Conservative pre-election coal plant emissions promise goes up in smoke

• ‘Greenest government ever’ reserves worst cuts for Defra

• Chris Huhne admits green investment bank may be scaled back

• Government axes UK sustainability watchdog

• Flood defence spending: a crack in the dam?

• Poor flood defences ‘threaten England’s food supplies’

• Coalition drops further green pledges on timber and renewables

• Easing of parking rules will lead to traffic congestion, warn campaigners

The jury is out

• UK government approves eight sites for new nuclear power stations

• Severn barrage ditched as new nuclear plants get green light

• Badger cull plans for England unveiled

• High-speed rail link gets £800m more in state funding

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/jan/05/greenometer-government-green/feed/ 0 http://uniteforclimate.org/2011/10/climate-change-and-child-rights-education-kit/ http://uniteforclimate.org/2011/10/climate-change-and-child-rights-education-kit/#comments Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:57:46 +0000 ficho http://uniteforclimate.org/?p=349109 The “Education Kit on Climate Change and Child Rights – How to defend child rights affected by climate change” is a teacher and (peer) facilitator’s guide for exploration and action in industrialized countries. The toolkit aims to empower young people as actors of change through classroom activities with recommendations for facilitators and teachers working with young people aged 11-16 years old. The activities were designed to involve children as much as possible through role plays, simulations, games, and creative writing. The toolkit can also be used in combination with the video “Child Rights and Climate Change: Your World, Your Voice, Your Future”

You can download the toolkit here.

We have a long way to go if we are to protect the planet from climate change, the great environmental battle of our age

Forty years ago today a small band of activists who had hired a fishing boat in Vancouver set sail for a small island off the coast of Alaska. Their aim was to halt a planned underground nuclear test by the Nixon administration, and although the attempt to prevent the explosion was thwarted by the US coastguard, something else was detonated as the crew of pacifist ecologists captured the imagination of people across the world and Greenpeace was born.

Over four subsequent decades Greenpeace has deployed a mix of non-violent direct action, investigations and mobilisation to highlight environmental threats and offer imaginative and effective solutions to protect the planet. We’ve been on the oceans putting our bodies between harpoons and whales, our campaigns against the dumping of toxic waste at sea have seen the introduction of international laws that now prevent it, and our rainforest campaigns have slowed the mass commercial exploitation of forests across the globe. More recently we were central to the successful campaign to block a third runway at Heathrow. Our campaign against new coal-fired power stations saw six activists who climbed the smokestack at Kingsnorth in Kent acquitted in court after they convinced a jury that their attempt to block carbon emissions were justified. Soon afterwards the UK government announced an end to new unabated coal plants in Britain.

But while we’re happy to mark our successes on today’s anniversary, this is no time to celebrate. We’ve done much, but sometimes it feels like the past 40 years have been a preparation for the greatest environmental challenge we humans have yet faced, the one that will define success or failure for our movement: climate change.

This week scientists from several leading institutes are reporting on the state of the Arctic sea ice – that white cap at the top of the world that acts as a global air conditioner by reflecting most of the solar radiation that hits it, keeping the planet cooler than it otherwise would be. In the lifetime of Greenpeace the summer volume of that vital sheet of floating ice has fallen from around 17,000 cubic kilometres to just 4,000. If Greenpeace exists four decades from now it is likely we will be campaigning for a planet that looks radically different from space, one with open ocean surrounding the north pole in the summer months.

I was in the Arctic this year. I was jailed for climbing on to an oil rig off the coast of Greenland and demanding an end to the drilling of exploratory wells by UK-based Cairn Energy, which is hoping to hit some of the billions of barrels said to lay untapped under the Arctic. It is a sign of how far we environmentalists still have to go that governments and businesses see the disappearance of the sea ice not as a grave warning to humanity, but as an opportunity to extract more of the very fuels that got us into this mess in the first place. My climb on to that rig, with 20 other men and women from around the world, forced Cairn to publish its deeply flawed plan for cleaning up an Arctic oil spill, but with Shell preparing to send its rigs to the same region next year we have on our hands one of the great environmental battles of our age.

By scaling that Arctic rig I wanted to make an important point. I am an African, my hometown of Durban could not be much further from Greenland, but the warming at the top of the world is of as much relevance to the lives of my countrymen and women as it is to the people of Scandinavia. The same can be said of deforestation in the Amazon, coal-burning in India or industrial overfishing in Europe. The consequences of our exploitation of the Earth’s limited resources do not respect borders. Our world is now interconnected, but our biosphere always has been. When it comes to protecting the global environment for the next generation we really are all in it together, so unless we act together in places where Greenpeace has not long existed, this battle will be lost.

That means changing the way we operate, it means shifting our resources southwards so we’re no longer so heavily represented in North America, where we began, and in Europe where we came of age when the French government sunk our flagship Rainbow Warrior, when our colleague Fernando Pereira drowned. Today we have expanded our campaign teams to China, Senegal and South Africa which is helping us co-ordinate our work so we can pressure the same targets across several continents at the same time. The threats we face are global, our opponents are often global corporations, the media that carries our message is changing rapidly and no longer marries up to the lines on a map. So we too need to be truly global.

But ultimate success will be achieved when we are no longer necessary. I have no more idea of what we will look like in 40 years than did our founders in 1971. But I fear the fight to defend the Earth and its inhabitants against mindless exploitation will be as relevant and necessary as it is now.

• Kumi Naidoo is the executive director of Greenpeace International

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/15/greenpeace-40-years-activism/feed/ 0 http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/scientists-with-different-politics-speak-with-one-voice-on-climate/ http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/scientists-with-different-politics-speak-with-one-voice-on-climate/#comments Thu, 15 Sep 2011 03:17:25 +0000 AutoFeed http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=37343 Scientists with different politics press politicians to talk straight on greenhouse risks.

Felicity Lawrence suggests people should reduce meat consumption in favour of soya and meat substitutes but notes this has never been a popular idea (A never-ending love affair?, 10 September). Although she touches on price, sustainability and health, she misses one important point about why people eat and will continue to eat meat – it tastes great. Meat is a delicious and integral part of a varied diet which should also include fish, fruit and vegetables. The NFU wants people to eat more fruit and vegetables – we support the five-a-day campaign – but we also want people to understand the merits of eating a well-balanced diet.

The article also looks at intensive farming but fails to acknowledge that some British agricultural land is unsuitable for arable or vegetable crops. This grazing land can only be productively managed with livestock. We are a grass-producing nation so livestock will always have an important role in allowing our pastures to produce healthy, tasty and sought-after products which remain very good value for money.
Peter Garbutt
Chief livestock adviser, NFU

• In the hills of Northumberland, and in hillier, wetter areas of the UK, the crop that grows best is grass. People can’t eat grass, so we rear animals which can, and then eat them. Many of these sheep and cattle are reared outdoors, for all or much of their lives, and this system of farming helps to maintain the countryside as we know it. Local farmers are starting to turn back to traditional British beef shorthorn cattle, which can be finished off on grass and don’t need to be fed indoors on expensive cereal-based fodder for the last few months of their lives. Animals reared humanely, and eaten locally, are important. By all means eat meat in sensible quantities, but better still pay more for the best product, keep farmers farming, and keep the animals in our fields.
Bridget Gubbins
Morpeth, Northumberland

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/14/merits-of-meat-humane-husbandry/feed/ 0 http://canadianyouthdelegation.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/today-we-took-the-government-of-canada-to-school/ http://canadianyouthdelegation.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/today-we-took-the-government-of-canada-to-school/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:41:07 +0000 AutoFeed http://canadianyouthdelegation.wordpress.com/?p=3230 Pulling an elaborate prank, the CYCC highlighted Canada’s shifting climate education strategy  - and then launched one of our own. Starting at 7:00 this morning, organizers with the CYCC orchestrated an elaborate hoax by re-releasing an Environment Canada Climate Change education program from the 1990′s. The prank drew attention to shifting government priorities on climate change … Read more

Climate is central to business strategy of 68% of the world’s 500 largest companies, compared with 48% last year

A majority of the world’s largest firms are taking action on climate change as part of their business strategy for the first time, a survey has found.

The 10th annual Carbon Disclosure Project, which analysed responses from 396 of the 500 largest companies in the world, found more than two-thirds (68%) now say they put climate change central to their business, compared with 48% last year.

Almost half (45%) are now reporting they have cut their greenhouse gas emissions as a result of steps they have taken to tackle carbon, up from less than a fifth (19%) in 2010.

The Carbon Disclosure Project report, written by PwC, also said there was a link between higher stock market performance and action on climate change, with those that have a strong focus on the issue providing investors with approximately double the average return over the period 2005 to 2011.

Tesco was the only big player from the UK which made it into the top 10 for both disclosing information and taking action on climate change, joining the likes of Bank of America, BMW, Sony and Philips Electronics.

But UK companies British American Tobacco, natural gas business BG Group and GlaxoSmithKline also made it into the list of major corporations which performed well on addressing climate change, entering the 2011 Carbon Performance Leadership Index which includes just 29 top businesses.

Major companies which are still not disclosing climate change information include Amazon.com, Apple, Bank of China and Russian government-owned oil giant Rosneft.

The CDP report suggests that rising oil prices, risky energy supplies and growing recognition of the returns on investment in cutting emissions have made climate change a more important issue in the boardroom.

It says that 59% of companies reported that the cost of schemes to reduce emissions such as energy saving projects in buildings, installing low-carbon power and changing the behaviour of staff, were recouped within three years.

Almost three-quarters of businesses (74%) who responded to the survey now have emissions reductions targets, up from two-thirds (65%) in 2010.

Utilities companies have the best average climate change performance while energy companies lag behind other sectors, with fewer setting targets, taking action or disclosing information.

Paul Simpson, chief executive of the Carbon Disclosure Project, an independent organisation which tracks corporate information on climate change, said: “The improved financial performance of companies with high carbon performance is a clear indicator that it makes good sense to manage and reduce carbon emissions.

“This is a win-win for business – the short returns on investment many emissions-reducing activities have, can help increase profitability.

“Companies yet to take action on climate change will have to work hard to remain competitive as we head towards an increasingly resource-constrained, low carbon economy.”

David North, global climate change champion at Tesco, said: “We have been cutting emissions for years, and as a result have reduced our energy costs by more than £200m annually – a win-win for business and the environment.”

The report found that the vast majority (93%) of companies who responded with information have senior executives or board members responsible for climate change.

And almost two-thirds (65%) offer financial rewards to staff for taking action on climate change.

Alan McGill, PwC sustainability and climate change partner, said: “We’re seeing the highest levels of board oversight and engagement on climate change strategy ever, with significant increases in the levels of monetary incentives linked to achieving targets.

“Companies are linking action on climate change to their employees’ work and wallets, from the boardroom to the office floor. It’s a shift we could not have imagined 15 years ago.”

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