Greenpartywatch: Supporting the stabbing industry

Caroline Lucas was on Question Time yesterday, taking a fairly straightforward pro-Union line on the BA strike. It can be seen here on iplayer, starting about 13 minutes in (until the next episode replaces it).

"...I deeply regret that the dispute has been allowed to escalate to such a point that we are now looking at a strike..."

Is this the same Caroline Lucas, who considers flying to be as bad as stabbing? (Yes it is.)

This raises the obvious question - why would you not want the stabbing industry to be hit by strike action?

As I said on Twitter at the time. "Lucas pretends to back the workers though she would really have them all out of a job. #bbcqt" (Thanks for the retweet @bbcquestiontime). I got a response to this suggesting that under the Greens, there would be jobs for these cabin crews on the railways. But it is hardly supporting the workers to suggest that you can just get another job! That is basically supporting the management: take what you're offered or clear off.

This reveals what is probably the most fundamental contradiction at the heart of the Green Party's thinking these days. One day they try to put the environment first: flying is evil, economic growth is wrong, etc. On another day they are pro-Labour (!), pro-Union, pro-worker, socialist, "defending jobs", "avoid the double-dip recession".

So one day it is make do and be happy with less. The next day it is supporting one group or another demanding more for their members, even if those members are engaged in trashing the planet.

One day it is "prosperity without growth". The next it is opposing cuts to public services. Yet without growth to reduce the deficit, cuts to public services will have to be so huge, it would position the Greens way to the right of the Tories. Yes, the Greens would be the biggest public service cutters of all.

I wrote earlier about the Green New Deal policy of the Green Party which becomes a little preposterous when you notice that they haven't agreed or can't say whether they want the economy to grow or not.

There may yet be some merit in either of the Green Party's two faces, but they had really ought to pick one and run with it if they want to make any sense. Socialism or the environment -they're not compatible.

Is the bag for life an improvement?

I've been wondering for some time whether the 'bag for life' that you can buy from many retailers is, environmentally speaking, actually an improvement on the disposable bag. This would seem to depend on how they are actually used - as opposed to the intention that they will actually be used 'for life'.

Rather than guesstimate away as usual, I thought I would be a little more scientific and try to gather some evidence. So please fill in my survey: 5 quick questions on your baggage habits.

Greening the sprouts

Charlotte and Steph have been telling us about the greenness of their school education. Now when I was at school, while I would bore my fellow students and any teachers who would listen, senseless, with the wisdom of EF Schumacher, I certainly never got any encouragement in return. My physics teachers were pro-nuclear of course, although one also signed me up to Amnesty International. 

It never occurred to me that we might learn about something quite so intensely political as the environment, at school. Rather, I took it as my mission to bring this wisdom to my peers, along with that of any other hard-left causes I came across as a member of a poor middle class minority in a working class area.

Clearly all that changed, more or less as soon as I left school. I was shocked to see my daughter's Y3 school play about the rainforest, complete with evil loggers, noble savages and talking animals. Not that it was entirely, or even largely, wrong. Simplistic, black and white, saccharine, yes, of course it was all of those, what do you expect. But it seems that environmental values - not just environmental science - is now on the syallabus.

What should we make of this? Despite the special claims of faith schools, all schools are beacons of values, they all teach good behaviour, reponsibility, self-respect and so forth. So it makes sense to add environmental consciousness to the list. Yet there are legitimate political debating points that are necessarily brushed aside by this clarity of moral purpose.

And the more specific we get, the more problematic it becomes. Environmentalism is replete with received wisdom of variable quality, largely defined by the mass media, and therefore not a few contradictions. We wouldn't teach physics from articles in the Sunday papers, so why environmentalism? Surely the question of whether expanding nuclear power is an appropriate response to the threat of global warming, shouldn't be taught. Investigated, yes, debated, yes, but taught?!

Environmentalism also bears some of the scars of its years in the wilderness: a focus on the personal above the political, even when the personal is utterly symbolic; a tendency to blame corporations or profit for everything; a normal human tendency to evaluate evidence on the basis of where it comes from, and whether it fits the answers you are already proposing.

Still, clearly a whole generation of people has decided to teach the next the importance of doing something it wouldn't do itself. The only axe-grinders I remember teaching me were an anarchist, a Conservative and a Christian. Yet unlike those three, we have something nearing a consensus that environmentalism is the way forward. And when did that happen? Somehow, without my noticing, my views went from cranky to mainstream, without changing much.

All we need now is to do something about it. So what could be better than teaching our kids how to save the planet? (Other that doing it ourselves of course) Well how about teaching them how to crtically evaluate evidence and arguments? Include in that examining values and evaluating ethical arguments. Yet how many schools study philosophy and ethics? We need to learn to ask the right questions, not just be given what others think are the right answers.

Lynas and Lucas on nuclear power

Environmnental writer Mark Lynas and Green Party leader(!) Caroline Lucas debated nuclear power on the today programme this morning. It brought what I thought was the most astute question I've heard for a while on Today:

[Is there something] almost dogmatic in the theological sense about where the Green movement stands on this question, in that people are perhaps looking at the facts through lenses tinted by the historic opposition of the green movement to nuclear power?

Lucas didn't entirely disagree, but argued her point nonetheless in the usual way:

•  "Nuclear would lock us into a centralised energy system...." which is largely cod. They are all good ideas that come under the "decentralised energy" agenda, but the agenda itself is simply a way of packaging all carbon-saving technologies except for nuclear for the purposes of promoting them. By all means do that if you have already decided that nuclear would be a mistake, but it doesn't work as an argument against nuclear.
•  "Nuclear is not necessary..." - perhaps not. Arguably wind is not necessary either, or coal or gas or even energy efficiency. What is necessary is the generation of enough low-carbon energy, and we cannot afford to let dogma get in the way of this.
  
•  "Nuclear delivers too little too late." - that all depends on how much of it we build and how quickly. As Lynas pointed out, Germany built more coal fired power stations after the Greens had their nuclear plant shut down. That is an undeniable harm to the climate.

On their own these arguments might sway some but seen together they are horribly weak. We don't oppose wind farms because they deliver very little as a percentage of our total energy needs. We don't dismantle the interconnector to France's nuclear electric riches on the grounds that that is too "centralised", nor should we. We maintain spare generating capacity so that no single plant is "necessary". Lucas' objections are paper thin when stood against the need for large amounts of low-carbon energy.

Now maybe nuclear is just too expensive. Perhaps filling a percent of a percent or two of the Sahara with CSP, and linking to it with HVDC would be a better investment. But my guess is that we should do both - that we are a long way from being in a position to turn down feasible low-carbon energy sources. It is madness to frame the debate as nuclear v renewables and efficiency, when we are still building coal-fired plant.

And in any case the unknown factor in the cost of nuclear is the underwriting of the decommissioning cost, which is some time away. This would represent off-books liability that puts PFI to shame. No other low-carbon energy source can defer its costs like this. I don't think that our descendents whose climate will have been saved will mind that much the decommissioning cost. It is not as if they would be better off suffering climate change.

So with that in mind, it seems that nuclear capacity is almost certainly probably worth building, and probably probably worth building in sufficient quantity to replace all our coal-fired plant. (Gas, on the other hand, complements wind well.) I realise that my party, the Lib Dems, is opposed. I guess this is due to a desire to do the right thing for the environment, but with too much deference to the environmental movement. But environmentalists should heed Lynas:

We are no longer living in the 1970s. Today, the world is more threatened even than it was during the Cold War. Only this time nuclear power – instead of being part of the problem – can be part of the solution.

Reinventing the State Chapter 12: The Economy and Climate Change

As expected, Chris Huhne delivers the goods on this. He

advocates a package that can be constructed without hurting the poor or even compromising on redistribution.

Which is overselling a little - there is real competition for spend between social and environmental projects, and even if the green taxes levied are largely progressive or neutral, they will have knock on effects on product prices and the cost of living.

However, I can forgive Chris for getting a little carried away. (Hmm, change of house-style there. First names from now on.)


We start with a nice go at the Green Party's "eco-Marxist" or anti-growth position

Since growth is, in one view, the end result of so many other actions freely undertaken by individuals and companies, albeit within a framework set by government, this implies that we must abandon the principle that we are free to do as we will so long as the activity is not forbidden by law. It implies a process of licensing and permission that is deeply antithetical to liberal values. It would, indeed, be reminiscent of the Soviet Union's economic planning by Gosplan.

this is something I have been trying to say on this blog for some time, but Chris has put it better.


Most of the arguments that follow will be familiar to those who have read the zero carbon paper agreed at Brighton 2007. Carbon trading and green taxes are extolled. More direct measures are advocated in areas like home energy efficiency where many are locked to the assets they have and so pure price signals would generate much pain and little movement. We go on to such things feed-in tariffs, LVT, and leapfrog funds for developing nations.

The overall picture here is that we can decarbonise the economy, with technology that largely exists already, at not to great a cost, and that by doing this we can end any dilemmas about supporting development in the third world. This is a position I wholeheartedly endorse.


However, I do have a few issues with some of the details.


First Chris seems unduly keen on cap and trade and the EU ETS. He even suggests it comes before green taxes in the hierarchy of liberal economic instruments. I find this pretty breathtaking. Trading never beats taxation - sure it sounds better - but the two are equivalent in theory: a price is put on something that must be limited, to allow the market to place those limits in the most efficient places. In practise it is easier to calculate the right level for a pigovian tax and let the market find the level than calculate the right level and let the market find the price. A more stable price, futhermore, is a clear political signal and a better guide to investment that might be scared off by volatility.

The EU ETS goes further wrong in giving permits away, which is effectively giving public money away for nothing. And what does this mean? Windfall profits as the "opportunity costs" of not reselling these free permits is passed on to consumers. And new entrants to the market - just what we need to maximize innovation - are virtually kept out as they don't get these grandfathered freebies.

Finally, I would suggest that international agreements on national carbon limits and carbon trading will be vastly more difficult to reach - because it implies a divvying up of the climate commons - than an agreement that each country will simply tax its own emissions and keep the revenue. A lower rate for developing countries if they want, fine. Political transparency for which countries are pulling their weight, and which are freeloading? Yes, please.


Moving on. Chris advocates a legislative requirement on energy companies to sell less energy from one year to the next, hoping this would incentivise them to provide energy efficiency grants to customers. I find this pretty barmy. As long as the power is connected it is the consumer who chooses how much to use. Rather than legislate a duty on suppliers they don't have the power to meet, why not tax or ration or otherwise seek to influence the person with their finger on the switch. And any scheme like this inverts the normal incentives to sell your product with penalties and incentives will be highly gameable. There'll be more windfall profits here and no gains. A better insulated home is a public good and a good for the occupants. Why should an energy supplier (who we might rotate every 3 months) pay for this at all?


Feed-in tariffs are another measure, widely advocated for domestic microgen, but on which I am fairly cautious. I fully support the idea for big wind and so forth, where a couple of pence per unit will make all the difference. Chris suggests a feed-in tariff of 4 times the feed-out rate for domestic microgen. At that rate I could buy, or build, a flywheel and sell grid electricity back to the grid on a slight delay. We shouldn't feel such a need to pay for something - like tiny amounts of domestic microgen electricity - what is clearly a great deal more than it is worth. We should be doing the cheapest first, and will probably never get to give-away feed-in tariffs for domestic microgen. I dare say this position may be unpopular but it is part of my crusade to promote what is practical at the expense of what is symbolic.


These problems all exist in the zero carbon paper, which, furthermore didn't seem to propose enough to bring emissions down quite that far. Chris has his questionable zeros here too. I didn't seek to oppose or amend the paper because I think it has basically the right approach, as does this chapter.

Reinventing the State Chapter 3: Liberal Environmentalism

Ed Randall writes a sound survey of some different strands of environmental thought, although it is a little difficult at times to see which he is advocating and which he is opposing. I think if I were writing a chapter like this I would be a little more polemical and I wouldn't necessarily credit many greens with the coherence that Randall does. I think for many greens, abstract questions of political philosophy should not stand in the way of whatever might work - that the debates between socialism, conservatism, liberalism, anarchism and so on have paled into insignificance in face of impending ecological catastrophe. But of course this seemingly eminently practical approach tends to encourage dirigiste thinking - which is a big mistake, IMHO, you do not make further progress by throwing away centuries of progress.

This said, there are some valuable questions and insights here and I will look at two of them.

Randall begins with JS Mill's prediction that economic advancement would end, but that this would not mean the end of improvement of the human condition. This obviously resembles the demand by many greens that economic growth should stop. I am more attracted to the point made by some greens and many economists that economic growth is just a statistic, and not nearly as informative a one as it might seem. With the relative decline of manufacturing, growth seems to suggest an increase in how much we value the things we do for each other. What could be more benign?

It is worth remembering that the the anti-growth position predates knowledge of global warming and was in fact driven by a concern that resources would run out. Now, if anything, we should hope that fossil fuels run out soon enough. The resource issue is, rightly, almost forgotten although a flavour of its rhetoric can be found in advocacy for recycling. But while economic growth might be a reasonable proxy for levels of resource use - if manufacturing were not in relative decline - it is obviously a terrible proxy for levels of carbon emissions. GDP is a statstic, aggregating many diverse activities. If some of those activities are a problem then aggregate them separately - don't try to manage them with the bluntest instrument imaginable.


Another theme Randall picks up is the possibility of expanding business goals to include a wider range of social, and in this case environmental goals, rather than simply focussing on the bottom line. On one level, this is pure apple pie, and nobody could possibly object. We read phrases such as "the war of money against life". "A Britain that is able to maintain a fiscal environment that is attractive to private equity firms should also be capable of developing tax policies that favour co-operators who work in businesses that make sustainability an integral part of their corporate culture and mission."

While I am clear that businesses doing this should be praised not mocked, I would like to refer to an earlier blog post of mine inspired by Adair Turner's book Just Capital which is highly skeptical of the power of this kind of stakeholderism to make much difference.

If we see the sustainable co-operators as the good guys, what could be more natural than changing the rules to favour those good guys? One thing: changing the rules to favour more sustainable behaviour by everybody. The good guys are those who will go the extra mile whatever the rules say. But you can't make people good like this with rules; a rule cannot say "do more than the rules demand". Furthermore, all these diverse goals aside from the bottom line are good intentions, not good actions. You can try to legislate for intentions, but you will fail. Read the other post for more on this point.


The corresponding chapter of the Orange Book sought to show that the environment can be protected in an economically liberal way and this chapter does the same job for social liberalism. There is of course no contradiction between these positions, and they might serve to reassure different people. This chapter is probably more significant because it attempts to engage with the bulk of the environmental movement which is to be found on the left.

More hypocrisy please

If you support the policy of improving the nutrtional standards of school meals, but eat the occasional turkey twizzler yourself, are you a hypocrite? Or if you support a penny on income tax, for some bizarre off-message reason, but you fail to donate an extra 1% of your income to the treasury, are you a hypocrite? In each case no. The question is deeply confused.

Yet, if you advocate improved energy efficiency standards, but leave your TV on standby; if you advocate better public transport, but drive everywhere; if you support any policy to do something about environmental problems, but don't engage in sufficiently proportionate self-denial, then it seems you are a hypocrite.

When the European Commission announced plans to improve vehicle fuel efficiency, some of the British journalists responded by asking the commissioners what car they drove. That answer - none of your business, what does that have to do with anything - would not be heard from a British politician.

And yet if the commissioners were hypocrites, so are the people who eat turkey twizzlers or fail to donate extra money to the treasury.

We are not, after all, talking about preaching to people. Yes if you preach a 'don't drive' message and drive yourself, that is hypocrisy. But preaching is the job of pressure groups not politiicans. Politicians should do what the people tell them to do and not the other way round. Governments certainly shouldn't be spending taxpayers money preaching at those same taxpayers.

I don't care what my MP or PM eats, drives or how he lights his home, I care what his policies are.

And yet environmental preaching is expected everywhere - it threatens to make prigs of us all.

I suggest that the innapropriate politicisation of enviornmental preachiness is causing considerable damage to the clarity of thought that environmental policy might otherwise enjoy. While not using standby or plastic bags are good suggestions, they would be bad laws. With the preaching in focus inevitably the kinds of policy measures that come to mind are micromanaging. It might be tolerable if so many of the measures didn't have such trivial impacts. And that is before we consider any unintended consequences - if you ban one behaviour people may find an alternative that is even worse. You might ban standby, but the TV can still be left on.

The policies that will make a big difference to the environment don't involve micromanagement: Generate lots of renewable energy, build efficient buildings with amenities within walking distance, make the polluter pay with a simple upstream carbon tax. I will vote for that whatever the candidate drives.

Towards Liberal Environmentalism

Some weeks ago I wrote this post in response to an article by John Dixon asking whether environmental challenges demand a massive illiberal state intervention in people's lives.

I argued that this was not the case because the solutions to the problems we face exist, but we are failing to face up to a moderate increase in costs. I am a little unsatisfied with that answer, because there are two more critical arguments that can be made against John's original "the environment demands socialism" case:

1. Safeguarding the environment is not in fact a single objective that can be pursued 'at all costs' with a war communism kind of mentality. For one, it is many objectives; global warming is not the only problem we face, and the factors contributing to it are diverse. For two, the challenge might be better stated as sustaining ourselves without damaging the environment. Sustaining ourselves is as diverse a goal as it ever was, whatever constraints are applied or not. It is impossible to do well by central planning.

Whether war communism is the best way to fight a war is also worth asking, but as Hayek let it past, so will I for now.

2. What does this suggestion mean:

"It’s going to require radical structural changes in the way our economy and society function. People won’t do this on their own. Government must force the change, whether structurally or by actively moderating our behaviour."?

It's short on specifics, as usual. I was probably too charitable in thinking it referred principally to blunt and illiberal but reasonably effective measures such as rationing. But it could be worse. What if all the things we were told we ought to do - switching things off, modes of transport, consumer choices, and so on - what if the "correct" choice in each case became compulsory? Is this what we are talking about here? That would be active moderation of behaviour and it would be tyranny. And it wouldn't do much good. Why?

• There's a rule that says "don't leave the TV on standby". There isn't a rule saying don't watch TV. My current TV uses 200W when on and 2W on standby. I can (and would) obey the rule by turning the TV on when I sit down, rather than 5 minutes later when the programme starts. (Using one sixtieth of a unit of electricity instead of one six thousandth of a unit. Big deal.)
  
• There's a rule that says "recycle". There isn't a rule that says "don't use stuff at all". Recycling usually has some benefits compared to other means of disposal, but never has any compared to not using stuff in the first place.
• ...etc. All this advice, don't fly, don't do this or that, probably does good overall, but there will be some unintended consequences. Make the advice compulsory and you will have unintended consequences in spades.

I hope to expand on both of these points in due course. Tristan has reawakened me from my blogging slumber with this post. Work has been heavy lately but I haven't forgotten you.

Tristan correctly identifies that much environmental advocacy seems to presume a collectivist philosophy. It is important to be careful here. I have no doubt that some 'collective' action will be necessary - some government spending is justified. But only in pursuit of a situation in which we are still free to pursue our own goals - to sustain ourselves according to our own desires and values. We won't get there by having the state micromanage us, or by turning well-meaning back-of-an-envelope environmental advice into hard law.

Being green and socialism: a response to John Dixon

John Dixon has a piece here on Lib Dem Voice asking: "Will we have to be socialist to be green?"

John writes:

If we are to deal with global warming it is not going to be easy: we can’t simply magic away 80% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and we can’t simply speak about global warming as if it’s the most important issue facing the world and yet treat it as if it’s a secondary issue that wont actually affect our everyday lives.

The price for tackling global warming estimated by the Stern report is 1% of GDP. This an awful lot of money. Lots of hip replacements, lots of Tarceva, many many classroom assistants, many miles of light rail, ID cards, trident, you name it. But, to be blunt, it is not so expensive, so impoverishing, that it will greatly affect our lifestyles. That is, while we may change our spending patterns, our lifestyles and choices in response to the measures needed, those changes needn't be for the worse to any great extent - to any extent greater than the changes that 6 months of recession would cause.

So the common response that radical sacrifices are what is required, is a big mistake. It is both untrue, and it is practically damaging because it is a counsel of despair.

There is no middle ground on environmentalism. We can either go all the way, and attempt to prevent the ensuing disasters that climate change will surely bring by checking climate change itself - or push the national effort into preparing for such calamities. Any middle road will be both ineffective and wasteful.

But we are miles away from there being a "the national effort". So arguing over what it should be like this is a little hysterical. John is saying that we shouldn't adapt to climate change because we've only just got enough in the tank to prevent it. The opposite position to this is held by the likes of Bjorn Lomborg - that we shouldn't prevent climate change because it would be much cheaper to adapt to it. But saying the opposite of whatever the bad guys are saying doesn't make good policy.

My position is this:

• A certain amount of warming is inevitable, and a certain amount of adaptation will be necessary, whatever success we have in prevention
• The capacity to adapt to climate change is an important capacity to have anyway - because it implies a capacity to react to natural disasters, which will still happen, whatever success we have in preventing climate change. While the bulk of climate change is anthropogenic, I don't doubt that nature has the potential to throw things at us that have an even bigger impact on climate than our carbon emissions.
• There is a temptation to drag our feet on adaptation in order to build political support for prevention. I am dead against this, it is playing politics with people's lives. There is absolutely nothing wrong with building sea defences or moving out of flood plains, these are entirely sensible rational policies, and to oppose them is to be a species at war with itself when it should be uniting.

Prevention is good and adaptation is good. It is bizarre to damn either as part of an "ineffective and wasteful" middle road. It is irrational to damn one because you think the other is better. We see the same thing happening throughout politics. Trade and aid are both good for the third world, yet many big supporters of one feel they should oppose the other. Negative and positive liberty are both good, but try telling that to the socialists or libertarians. Nuclear and renewables will both generate low carbon energy, so pick one and oppose the other!

A national effort is required and, just like in the Second World War, it is going to require government intervention to a huge extent. This has led to some of our more libertarian and conservative colleagues (who declare freedom for businessmen and complacency for everyone else) decrying environmentalists as ‘undercover fascists’ and scolding the entire principle of climate change as a ‘far left wing conspiracy’. Absurd, of course, partly because the Green party doesn’t exactly exert nationalistic or fascist principles, but mainly because it lets the unattractive resultant solutions for a problem obscure the fact that there is a problem at all.

The Dunkirk spirit analogy is compelling. The war on global warming demanding a kind of war communism in government is John's thesis. But lets agree to fight the war before we adopt war communism. And if it only costs 1% of GDP we need never adopt war communism. There are conceivable causes which might prompt us all to work single-mindedly for them, but better light bulbs is not one of them. We have the means to generate as much low carbon energy as we want - at a price - whether it is nuclear, or offshore wind, or filling the Sahara with concentrated solar (CSP) plant. All we have to be willing to do, is pay the taxes, or the energy bills, and vote to make it happen.

Which brings me to my third point. In order to tackle climate change we will have to, whether we like it or not, have huge amounts of government intervention. We may well become a socialist state. Carbon rationing, government monitoring of our firms’ environmental impact or even quite possibly government control. There are certainly quite a few people within our own centre-left party (let alone the general public) who would be against such a move.

Carbon trading schemes would allow a certain amount of marketisation within the greening society, but, as we have seen recently, unless strictly enforced they do not reduce carbon emissions, and can simply lead to more market and government failure if too highly or too lightly implemented.

Emissions taxes, rather than emissions trading, are also a "marketisation" of the solution. And one that works rather better - there is more certainty for business, and there is less scope for hostile lobbying and special pleading when there are no permits to be issued. While a low price is roughly equivalent to setting the cap too high, a low price is much more visible, and therefore more politically difficult, than too high a cap. See here for example. The Lib Dems are right to propose green taxes in preference to more cap and trade.

I don't suggest that taxes alone will be sufficient, because too many people are willing to pay a great deal more for energy than they do, and very high carbon taxes would increase the cost of living and hammer the poor. So governments can and should promote low carbon energy generation, better transport, and energy efficiency.


Do we have to be socialist to deal with global warming? No. Of course that wasn't the question asked, the question was: will we have to be socialist to be green? That is rather more difficult. There is a trend within the green movement that holds that prosperity is the problem - affluenza and all that - that we could avoid global warming and other problems by being poorer. This is a huge mistake as I have argued before on this blog. But is it socialist? Intriguingly, the Green Party manifesto is closest to a conservative caricature of socialism. High taxes and high spending crushing enterprise making everyone poorer. To be this kind of green, you have to agree with the right's view of socialism, but support it anyway. Socialists, on the other hand have always sought to benefit working people - with mixed results. Do you have to be a conservative socialist to be green? Maybe.

Green Lib Dems

I have just witnessed the Sunday morning debates at the Lib Dem spring conference, and - in order not to miss out on this whole 'I am here, look this is me blogging' thing - a bit like the 'hello I'm on the phone' kind of conversation that briefly provided comedians with a little material when mobile phones were fairly new -I thought I would comment briefly, while waiting for Ming's speech.

We debated a pair of good motions on green and prosperous communities and on sustainable housing. The interesting thing is that in both cases we had a speaker from the Green Lib Dems complaining that a) they hadn't been consulted, and b) it didn't go far enough with all the green stuff.

However, as another member of Green Lib Dems, I had no difficulty in supporting both motions. While I agree that wider circulation of draft proposals would always be a good thing, the complaint that there was expertise going unused struggled to hit home. Because the only gems of wisdom offered were additional policy content that was actually quite debatable.

The example that springs to mind was the suggestion of reduced VAT on DIY goods which can be used for energy efficiency enhancing improvements. In one sense this is perhaps all grist to the mill, little measures will add up, etc, etc. On the other hand we are talking about tinkering with an already complex tax, VAT, to slightly reduce the price of a class of goods that might bring energy effiency gains, without, as far as I can see any analysis of how much energy we expect to save, for the known revenue cost and unknown administration cost.

There is a dangerous principle here, that all goods should be assessed for their environmental impacts, including potential impacts depending on what uses they are put to, and that everything from apples to zeppelins has its own tax rate. And surely this tax shouldn't be VAT which is effectively free to most businesses.

A greater purist than I would say that a simple levy on fuel will suffice and the market will determine how much insulation people install. I think this is a fairly reasonable approach to business [with some caveats off the point for this blog], but individual behaviour is more driven by habit than by calculations of costs and benefits. So I think there is a good case for sending signals to individuals, signals such as energy ratings for appliances, and perhaps a few supertaxes on common poor products with good alternatives, such as disposable batteries and incandescent light bulbs.

I don't think reduced VAT on anything comes close to being a clear signal. And assessing individual goods, given the number of different products that exist would be bureaucratic beyond Sir Humphry's wildest dreams.

Simplicity and clarity of signal: these are the keys.

So, anyway this proposal wasn't included in the sustainable housing motion. Not because the drafters hadn't heard of it, I would guess, but because it is a better, clearer motion without it.

Is the party failing to use the green expertise it has? No it is merely failing to agree with a few members of a particular group of enthusiasts. There's no harm in that. Green expertise clearly extends far beyond the Green Lib Dems, and perhaps that group needs to reflect a little on the ways in which it can still add value in a party that understands the environmental cause and has taken it on board.

A tragic death in the family

Yesterday I learned of the death of my cousin, Jono Parr, a young man, killed by a lorry while cycling to work.

I'm not going to talk at any length about how I feel - this is a public blog, and that is not the sort of thing I do. But I am deeply shocked and saddened, and outraged at the manner of this death. However I am moved to say something about the risks of cycling.

I used to cycle everywhere and I shudder to think of some of the risks I took and near misses I had. After moving to Sheffield and spending a couple of years panting and sweating my way up the hills, I decided I need some assistance and switched to a motorbike. After another near miss or two and lots of freezing weather, I went for the kind of motorbike with 4 wheels and an enclosed cab.

This was all despite being in some ways a fairly militant environmentalist. Today the traffic is worse, cars are constantly weaving around to straddle speed cushions, cycle lanes of 18 inches have been painted at the side of roads to narrow too fit 2 cars and 2 bicycles. I would not consider cycling on these roads. I would rather grow fat. But we hear the message: leave the car at home - you ought to cycle. My reaction: Get a sense of proportion.

Don't get me wrong. If you want to cycle, if you enjoy it, if you need the exercise, if it is the only practical way to get around, if the risks are minimised, then go for it. (And I don't know what Jono's reasons were for cycling.) But don't tell me that it is morally better. It is morally better not to get killed by a lorry.

Environmentalism is stuck in this rut of asking people to make sacrifices. As if somehow environmental problems were insoluble without some great moral reawakening. But this is rubbish - they are just practical problems. You will no more save the planet by cycling or recycling than you will abolish the national debt by donating your share of it to the treasury. Big practical problems need big solutions, involving money, technology, and political will.

And transport related risks are a huge practical problem, not just for cyclists; as are congestion and access to transport. I think one proportionate step would be to remove lorries from the roads during rush hours. Yes, it would push haulage costs up a certain amount, but, frankly, haulage is dirt cheap. And it would ease congestion and improve safety for millions of commuters, cars, bikes and buses. Please sign the petition:

petitions.pm.gov.uk/Lorries/

Carbon Offset standards to rise

This story caught my eye because there is a lot of rot talked about carbon offsetting. I am delighted that there is going to be a stricter standard because, for various practical reasons, it is not clear that offsetting today does an awful lot of good.

However I would first like to deal with the common objection in principle to offsetting, that frequently is heard from the environmentalist left: that offsetting is wrong because it allows people to carry on polluting rather than thinking about reducing their carbon footprint.

On the face of it, this position is merely inexplicable and incoherent. If you clean up after yourself, what is the problem? Pooper scoops are wrong because they encourage people to let their dogs poop in the park? I have argued before that carbon emission shouldn't be considered sinful, but even if they are, redemption is available. So the anti-offset lobby views carbon emissions as not just sinful but irredeemable. And why? It is your net emissions that do the damage. Soak up the carbon, or otherwise undo the harm, and you have undone the harm.

The next objection is this: offsets allow the rich to carry on polluting while the poor will have to do without. This is true of more or less every product on the market, not just offsets. You may not like it, I don't particularly like it, but lets not pretend that this is something wrong with the concept of offsetting. If the fact that not everybody can afford something makes that thing wrong, then everything we buy is wrong, including all public services. What nonsense. And to insist that it is a bad idea for some people to undo the harm they do, simply because not everybody could do the same? Worse than nonsense.

No, this objection to offsetting comes from a shift in values away from not damaging the environment and towards self-denial. If self-denial rocks your boat then go for it, but please don't mis-sell it to the rest of us.

However, principles aside, offsetting has its problems. How do you account for the carbon benefit of a renewable energy project? How do you account for tree-planting, particularly if it was going to happen anyway? How do you know the scheme is honest? Newsnight's ethical man blog carries lengthy tortuous comment-debate over how to account for the benefit, if any, of his green electricity tariff.

I've not done any offsetting yet. I was about to at one point, but the price demanded was so low, I concluded that it was probably impossible to buy extra carbon capture at that price. Of course had it been high enough I may have balked at the price. And in any case, I have a normal consumer's skepticism regarding the chances that a website asking for money is on the level. Standards needed.

Micro turbines: mis-selling likely

I've been waiting on tenterhooks for Newsnight's Ethical Man to get his micro turbine. Rather than say anything about them, this being television, you have to buy one and film it and see what happens. Well, it's off. Windsave have changed their mind about the suitability of his property.

Justing by Justin's description, the property seems typical to good for wind, so what is going on? It appears that Windsave have realised that this would be bad publicity for them, so they pulled out. Even worse publicity than backing out at this stage.

I blogged about this before., saying that the Jury was out. Well it's not looking good now.

As Justin says, a turbine rated 1kW at 12 m/s is only going to produce 120W at 6 m/s, barely useful. But 6 is still above the usual average windspeed. Turbulence will reduce gains further, so it would appear that there are very few domestic sites suitable for this kind of turbine. A larger turbine could be useful, but there would be structural issues to contend with.

If you buy a turbine from B&Q, they will survey your site and tell you if it is unsuitable. But I do wonder how little power they will expect before they declare a site unsuitable and lose the sale: 200W? 100W? 50W? 50W on windy days? Who knows. But at all these levels the turbine is not going to save a third of your electricity bill or pay for itself within its lifetime. And it certainly doesn't justify any kind of government grant.

Tag: micro turbines

Monbiot on Stern

Hat tip Ballots Balls and Bikes

George Monbiot has published a 10 point plan for being much much greener than the stern review.

He is scrambling for clear green water here between himself and the mainstream.

Points 1 and 2

1. Set a target for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions based on the latest science. The government is using outdated figures, aiming for a 60% reduction by 2050. Even the annual 3% cut proposed in the early day motion calling for a new climate change bill does not go far enough. Timescale: immediately.

2. Use that target to set an annual carbon cap, which falls on the ski-jump trajectory. Then use the cap to set a personal carbon ration. Every citizen is given a free annual quota of carbon dioxide. He or she spends it by buying gas and electricity, petrol and train and plane tickets. If they run out, they must buy the rest from someone who has used less than his or her quota. This accounts for about 40% of the carbon dioxide we produce. The remainder is auctioned off to companies. It's a simpler and fairer approach than either green taxation or the EU's emissions trading scheme, and it also provides people with a powerful incentive to demand low-carbon technologies. Timescale: a full scheme in place by January 2009.

Well that seems to be just one point. And it seems to settle the matter. If we do this, the emissions will be cut the required amount. Who needs the other 8 points? They may affect how the carbon is emitted but they will not affect the total.

As it happens, I don't agree with the free annual traded quota. It is a cash-equivalent handout to every citizen. If you support the Citizen's Income idea as an alternative to benefits and tax allowances you should advocate it honestly, not try to slip it in on the back of a global warming measure.

And Citizen's Income is fine as an idea. It is just much too expensive.

I think green taxes are a better way of setting a price than traded quotas. They are less bureaucratic and less volatile, sending simpler clearer signals. They work differently in that taxes set a price premium and let the market find the level, whereas quotas set the level and let the market find the price. But effectively the two are tied: for a level of price or emissions there is an associated level of the other. We might not estimate the exact relationship well, but we can refine policy over the years to get the right outcome with either policy.

What delights do Monbiot's unnecessary 8 points offer us?

5. ...Two schemes in particular require government support to make them commercially viable: very large wind farms, many miles offshore, connected to the grid with high-voltage direct-current cables; and a hydrogen pipeline network to take over from the natural gas grid as the primary means of delivering fuel for home heating. Timescale: both programmes commence at the end of 2007 and are completed by 2018.

Er, another pipeline network? Can't we use the same pipes to carry hydrogen as we use to carry natural gas? Where on earth is all this hydrogen going to come from? The problem with hydrogen is generating it. If we do generate some, with, say, surplus renewable electricity, transport would be a better use for it, replacing oil, than piping into homes for heating, replacing gas.

10. Legislate for the closure of all out-of-town superstores, and their replacement with a warehouse and delivery system. Shops use a staggering amount of energy (six times as much electricity per square metre as factories, for example), and major reductions are hard to achieve: Tesco's "state of the art" energy-saving store at Diss in Norfolk has managed to cut its energy use by only 20%. Warehouses containing the same quantity of goods use roughly 5% of the energy. Out-of-town shops are also hardwired to the car - delivery vehicles use 70% less fuel. Timescale: fully implemented by 2012.

Am I missing something, or are we talking about nationalising the retail sector here? If not, who is going to be building these warehouses? None of the companies that have just had all their assets abolished would be that keen, or able.

As for the other points, there is a lot of banning, where supertaxes like on gas guzzlers would be a better measure. But there is no analysis of the freeloading problem (scroll down), it is Kantian ethics and that is the end of the story. Sorry, George, but this is not the 18th century.

Tags: global warming, George Monbiot

A stern warning

I have blogged at Liberal Review on the Stern Review on global warming.

A summary of the review can be found linked from this page, just above where it should say Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but this pdf may crash Firefox making you retype that whole blog post from memory.

Micro turbines: The jury is out

B&Q sent me an email the other day advertising their new Windsave rooftop turbine.

This is likely to considerably boost penetration of this kind of product. I am a big supporter of wind power, and I think it would be great if everybody had a 1 kW wind turbine on their house, providing most of their electricity needs and recharging their cars.

However, the question remains of whether rooftop locations are suitable for this kind of product. The Centre for Alternative Technology express concerns about turbulence and stresses on the building structure.

If a turbine needs a clean airflow and doesn't get it, it will not generate much power and will wear out quickly, perhaps having a zero or negative life cycle impact on carbon emissions, and obviously failing to deliver an acceptable return on investment.

If it damages the structure of the building, this would have to be repaired at great expense and not insignificant environmental cost.

CAT's advice is quite old - it has been there for a while. Perhaps the latest breed of turbines has overcome these problems. But perhaps it hasn't. These issues don't seem to be addressed in the marketing of new turbines. So this could be a big mis-selling scandal, exacerbated by well meaning promotion by supporters of renewable energy.

Newsnight's ethical man Justin Rowlatt is getting one. I will see how he gets on before considering one for myself.

Sin and carbon emissions

It is a sin to fly says the church. "Making selfish choices such as flying on holiday or buying a large car are a symptom of sin. Sin is not just a restricted list of moral mistakes. It is living a life turned in on itself where people ignore the consequences of their actions."

This has attracted a lot of ridicule from people who'd rather not know. Iain Dale, and some of the responses pile on the ridicule. Sin to fly? Ridiculous! I like flying!

Tim Worstall finds the idea is so absurd, he doesn't even need to comment.

Here's the thing. I agree that flying and driving are not sins, and that it would be counterproductive if we really did treat them as sins. But for reasons that should be explained, not just because I don't want to know.

The church's argument is, presumably, that carbon emissions cause global warming, and that this will, to the best of our knowledge, cause considerable harm to a great many people. The moral principle to be applied is "don't do harm to other people". So far so good.

Now I would argue that choosing not to fly or not to drive is superogatory, that is, it a morally good choice above and beyond one's duty. Emitting carbon is not the best moral choice, but is not so bad as to be morally prohibited.

Emitting carbon is one of those things that does some harm, but not so much harm that we would be better off doing without carbon-based energy altogether. Furthermore we are not in a position to judge whether other people's uses of carbon are going to do more harm, in general, than good, largely to them. Doubtless there are sacrifices that, if everybody made them, the net effect would be good. But make the sacrifices bigger, and the net effect will be bad - people will lose out more than they gain from a cooler world. (The right policy, of course, is to correct the externalised cost of carbon emissions with a carbon levy. Then we wouldn't, as individuals, have to worry about carbon emissions.)

Central control (whether by force, or by convincing moral injunction) can serve single specific objectives reasonably well, such as winning a war, or perhaps tackling global warming. The freer economy does much better at fulfilling the enormous diversity of needs that exist in reality - food, shelter, medical research, school trips, etc. This is like capitalism versus communism all over again. One day, perhaps, global warming will be the only significant challenge we face. Today it is merely a biggie among many, and we should still be wary of tackling it in such a way as to do more harm in other areas.

These are not the arguments we hear. Instead it is the spurious "I am supporting the tourist economy of ..." So what? Whatever you spend your money on, you will support some economy of some sort. Leave it in the bank and it gets borrowed and spent, or possibly invested. Put it under the floorboards and it is effectively a free loan to the state. It is hard to do "economic" wrong with your money.

So why has the church hit carbon with the S-word? Is it that the language of morality doesn't always have room for the idea that people are the best judges of their own needs and desires? And not just religious morality: Kant's categorical imperative - "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law" - seems also to underpin a lot of environmental moral argument, and suffers from a similar flaw. We aren't all the same, we don't all have the same needs and desires, and it would be quite awful if we all did the same things.

Is it that the church is uncomfortable with a capitalist rationale for relaxing? Modern capitalism was largely invented in the protestant world. Previously restrictions on usury, theories of fair prices and so on were among the factors holding it back. But I am reminded of historian RH Tawney's comment that it was not initally a difference of doctrine that allowed this, so much as reduced influence on civil authorities resulting from the schism.

After finding that link to Tawney on Wikipedia, I read it, and found a second relevant point of his. That "...such an attitude [equating the invisible hand with God's plan] precluded a critical examination of institutions, and left as the sphere of Christian charity only those parts of life which could be reserved for philanthropy, precisely because they fell outside that larger area of normal human relations, in which the promptings of self-interest provided an all-sufficient motive and rule of conduct."

I agree with Tawney again. No institutions should be exempt from critical examination. Compartmentalisation leads to ignorance. By failing to reconcile your moral framework with good progress achieved, errors in the framework can go unnoticed. Does the church's error in deeming carbon emissions sinful result from this failure to critically examine and accept capitalism?

Tags: sin, carbon emissions, church of england

If Green Taxes work

...won't they raise less over time?

This question is on many lips. Those of Nick Robinson for example.

Here's my answer: No they won't.

Demand for energy is fairly inelastic. Most users do not think much about the cost when switching on a light or driving to the shops. This means that we are a long way from the peak of the Laffer Curve in the eco-tax rates we're proposing to apply.

Prosperity is increasing, demand for energy is increasing, so the potential for eco-tax revenues is increasing and will go on increasing. The threat to prosperity is minimal or negative because we are reducing other taxes at the same time. So society will be richer in future and therefore willing to pay even more for energy.

This does not mean that eco-taxes fail. They succeed in reducing demand a little from what it would have been otherwise, and they succeed in raising revenue, allowing other taxes to be cut. These are both big positives.

Now perhaps there is a case for i) much bigger eco-taxes, that cause significant reductions in consumption, and ii) bigger still that lead to reductions in eco-tax revenues. And then we could have a lot more than 2p off income tax. Or perhaps that policy would be disproprotionate to the problem. But it is laughable to consider the hypothetical spectres of that policy to apply to this policy of only £8bn in eco taxes.

Tags: ecotaxes, Green taxes

The Green Switch

Chris Huhne has put the flesh (pdf) on his eco-tax bones. I discussed this at the time here and here.

1. An increase In Green Taxes As A Share Of National Income. Green taxes have fallen from 3.6 per cent of GDP in 1999 to just 3 per cent of GDP, and we are committed to reversing this trend. Revenue would be used to cut taxes elsewhere so that this is a green tax switch, not a rise in taxes.

Excellent. This is a very powerful statstic, and worth shouting about.

2. Reform The Climate Change Levy: The Climate Change Levy is a positive step forward but is too complex and bureaucratic. It should be restructured as a tax on carbon across the economy, but we support the Government’s intention for the first time to raise it in line with inflation. That should be the norm, not the exception.

This is good - it is simplest and least distorting to treat all carbon emissions the same. And as the package is to be revenue neutral, there will be direct benefits to low-carbon parts of the economy.

3. Raise Vehicle Excise Duty On Polluting Cars: The Chancellor has increased Vehicle Excise Duty on high polluting vehicles by less than the cost of half a tank of fuel. If it is to be effective as a measure to reduce emissions and encourage greener transport, VED will have to be radically redrawn to penalise emissions and reward clean cars. The top-rate of VED should be significantly higher than at present at £2000 a year for high emission cars.

This is a good measure. Fuel demand is not very elastic, but the choice of large inefficient vehicles is one that can be made to pay its way without hammering those who try to motor efficiently.

4. Keep Fuel Duty In Line With Inflation: Incentives to save fuel depend in part on developments in the oil market, but duty on fuel should normally keep track with inflation rather than decline in real terms. The failure to raise fuel duty since 1999 has led to a rise in emissions, and we support the Chancellor’s intention to raise fuel duty in line with prices in September.

Right, better than real terms cuts. And in my view aviation, industry, and domestic uses are higher priorities for real terms increases in eco-taxes.

5. Tighten Allocations in The EU Emissions Trading Scheme, And Auction 10 Per Cent Of The Permits. The recent fall in the price of carbon for industrial users reflects the unambitious overall cap set by the EU, together with the failure to allow national governments to hold back a part of the national allocation for sale to the highest bidder at auction. We will press for both reforms and for auctioning the maximum 10 per cent of permits currently allowed for 2011.

This may sound a bit dull, but it amounts to putting the cost of carbon up, and generating some more revenue.

6. Tax Emissions Not Passengers: We have led the way in calling for reform of the way air travel is taxed. Instead of Air Passenger Duty on each passenger, airlines should pay an emissions charge per flight. This would reward flights that were full and penalise those wasting a full tank on a few passengers.

This is a good step, and it is a framework that would allow us to move towards treating motoring and aviation more consistently.

7. Provide Help Where Cars Are Essential. In sparsely populated rural areas, cars are essential due to the lack of public transport. To reflect this need, we proposed an amendment to the Finance Bill introducing a 50 per cent discount on all but the top rate of VED for one car registered in such rural households.

I'm not a particularly rural-friendly person: I don't see why the rural lifestyle deserves subsidy any more than any other expensive lifestyle. But the promise was made and this is a good way of delivering on it. It is important that this sort of compensation should be in the form of tax cuts because otherwise you have to find money from elsewhere or lose the revenue neutrality of the package.


Of course this paper doesn't commit us to any particular totals - that would be treading too much on the toes of the tax commission. But I hope it makes a clear impression on that process.

We can see from the appendix that of £35bn eco-taxes levied in 2004, £32bn are taxes on motoring. (The climate change levy and air passenger duty are each less than £1bn.) Motoring is of course a significant environmental problem, but this seems disproportionate. What about industrial and domestic uses of energy? There is a perception that industry=jobs=good, domestic=pensioners not freezing=good, motoring=shopping sprees and school runs in chelsea tractors=bad. And of course there is a good dollop of truth to this, but it is not a balanced picture, and it distorts incentives to place almost the whole burden on motoring.

On the other hand we should probably subtract spending on roads, when considering how much of the £32bn is in fact an eco-tax, rather than a charge for the infrastructre that makes motoring possible. And we should also bear in mind that motoring imposes some specific externalities such as poor air quality that industrial and domestic uses of energy do not, to the same extent.

And before long people may well be charging batteries in their hybrid/electric cars from the mains. This will cause a dent in revenues and eco-taxes even if we go a long way to rectifying the imbalance.

So, it is a little disappointing that the nettle of domestic energy use has not been firmly grasped. The problem, I guess, is that it can't be done in a revenue-neutral way, without cuts elsewhere, if, as would be necessary, we want to compensate the pensioners who might otherwise freeze and various other needy groups. It would still be a good policy: it would promote efficiency and microgeneration more effectively than all the regulations we have (having just had a loft conversion I have immediate experience of this). But it would pour mud on the clarity of the "Green Switch" policy, so it doesn't belong in this paper. One for the following election perhaps.

Tags: Green Switch eco-taxes

Update: The carbon tax will include household emissions, with "provision" for the less well off. So my disappointment was due to not reading carefully enough. And of course if the "provision" amounts to a rebate on the carbon tax, then it needn't comporomise revenue neutrality despite what I said above.

Lovelock and Fatalism

James Lovelock crops up again on the today programme. Our efforts against global warming are puny, and we should concentrate on sea defences and food and energy security. Environmental organisations worry that we will shift from scepticism to despair without passing through a stage of determination. (I think this has largely already happened - environmentalists tend to think that people haven't heard them because behaviour hasn't changed much.)

Well of course it is inevitable that there will be some warming and some rise in sea levels. The question isn't and never was whether global warming happens or can we prevent it. The question is how much will there be. And the answer still depends, as it always did, largely on how much carbon dioxide is emitted.

Tens of centimetres of sea level rise may be inevitable. If we don't seek to change our energy strategies, then metres of rise will be likely. Tens of centimetres will be expensive in sea defences for the developed world, and will displace many people in the developing world. Metres of rise: multiply all those numbers up.

Some studies argue that rises of up to 2 degrees will improve agricultural output in temperate regions, reducing it in the tropics. Further rises will reduce it in both zones. So again the question is small increases or big ones.

Energy security and food security are always worth considering anyway. Sea levels don't rise so fast that we should expect to be caught out with poor sea defences, so long as we are willing to spend the money when it is clearly needed. And how do we enhance energy security? What sort of generation doesn't depend on fuel imports? Hands up anybody who can guess. That's right, renewables. Exactly what Lovelock is sneezing at.

Global warming is happening and is going to happen. One could equally say that crime happens and is going to happen. But fatalism does not lead us to disband the police. The potential for renewables is immense - the amount of power going untapped each year dwarfs our total coal, oil and uranium reserves. It is most likely we will end up using renewables a great deal in the future whatever strategy we follow. The question is how much to bring forward the investment to reduce global warming, and to give the third world more options for its development.

Tag: Global Warming