“
WWFhas 400,000 people who support us financially every month, and we have others who support us in other ways or less frequently,” he says.
“This is a huge number compared to the individual memberships of the political parties.”
WWFhas produced a set of priorities for manifestos, and Nussbaum sets out what some of these are.
He explains how the debate around energy bills underlines just how big a change is needed to make homes more energy efficient, so
WWFwould like to see a “national housing retrofit programme for energy efficiency measures”.
Nussbaum believes that this should be a leading infrastructure priority for the next government.
“Firstly it is a win for society, as we end up with lower bills and greater energy security. Secondly it is a win for the economy as it would generate jobs in making our homes more energy efficient, and those jobs would be all around the country. Thirdly, it would be a win for the environment because it would reduce the need to generate energy and the resource consumption and emissions that go along with that.”
“We need to have an organised plan that will retro-fit 25 million homes over the next three decades or so.”
“The parties need to devise policies that are capable of delivering that.”
Related to this, and discussing the response of the public to the Green Deal, which seeks to have more green measures installed in buildings, Nussbaum calls for the government “to look at how to pick up from the disappointing results so far, because we’ve got a huge challenge to reduce our energy consumption”. The importance of this is that it “provides energy security and that protects us from price rises. The need for action here applies to all the parties.”
Another leading priority for
WWFis the Paris Climate Change Summit in December 2015, which will be a major item in the in-tray of an incoming government next May.
“We need to see the government playing an influential role in the EU on both sides of the election, the run up and after, because the EU will play an important role in next year’s UN Climate Change Summit in Paris.”
“Getting an ambitious deal agreed in Paris should be one of the top foreign policy priorities for the next government, whatever its political make-up.”
“All the main parties need to think about that and be well prepared.”
“We are part of the Climate Coalition, which has over 100 organisations as members, representing between them over 11 million people. So we are going to be pushing our political leaders to be more ambitious on climate change action.”
On the legislative side
WWFwould like to see a Bill to reform water abstraction. “To protect and enhance our freshwater environment particularly so that more of our rivers and lakes, which are loved by the British people, meet a good environmental standard”.
Nussbaum also explains that there is a need for “a wide rollout of water metering”.
He recognises that this is a difficult and controversial subject and that metering needs to be combined with social tariffs to protect the most vulnerable. This, for
WWF, would benefit society by reducing many people’s bills, and would also make us more aware of how much water we are using, encouraging us to waste less.
Nussbaum reflects upon the performance of the political parties on environmental issues at the end of the current term; he explains that it has been challenging for
WWFto get the parties to engage actively on the environment because the political agenda has been dominated by the state of the economy.
He says that parties do not engage as much as they should due to a misguided sense that overseeing economic recovery on the one hand and protecting the environment on the other are incompatible, or that “solving environmental issues is something you can do when times are good, but has to be sacrificed when times are difficult”.
For Nussbaum, this has led to disappointments, for example last year’s debate on energy bills. “There was a lot of focus on the ‘green element’ of energy bills when the overwhelming reason for energy bills going up was because of the price of gas. There should have been much more honesty about the gas prices that caused most of the issues, rather than finding a convenient scapegoat.”
He describes as a misconception the view that there should be a reduction in support for renewable energy and energy efficiency in order to cut bills, because the best way to control bills is “precisely to invest in energy efficiency and clean energy”.
Despite this, Nussbaum does acknowledge positives: “The government has continued to take a leading role in international climate change negotiations.”
“They eventually accepted the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendations on the fourth carbon budget, and this will help on our trajectory towards a low carbon future through the 2020s.”
“The Government also played a leading role in a positive reform of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, which should lead to a healthier marine environment, and to a more sustainable future for the industries that depend on it. And, more recently, senior Ministers from across government came together in organising the London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade, in a much-needed bid to tackle a trade that is threatening the wild populations of iconic animals such as tigers and rhinos, as well as financing illegal activities.”
Nussbaum also describes how Labour has been “unequivocally clear” about the threat posed by climate change and the need for ambitious action.
In particular, he details how the party backed a 2030 Decarbonisation Target for the UK electricity sector, which was “very welcome and much needed if we are to achieve our economic and climate change goals”.
But, in general, Nussbaum says that “we’ve heard disappointingly little from politicians about the environment, and what we have heard has too often been mixed messages.”
For Nussbaum there has been too little support for the green economy, “a rapidly growing sector that has been pretty robust in the UK despite a difficult economic climate”.
WWF’s next major campaign will be looking to “safeguard the world’s forests”. Nussbaum describes them as “some of the most magnificent wildlife habitats we have”.
WWFis looking to safeguard them from illegal logging.
“The EU already has timber regulations in place, but firstly we need to make sure that all countries in the EU have implemented the regulation, and secondly we need to close some of the loopholes so that unsustainably harvested timber can’t get into the EU.”
To illustrate this, Nussbaum details some examples of such loopholes: “If I buy a picture frame, this is covered by the timber regulations, but if I buy a picture in a frame, that’s not covered. Musical instruments are also not covered.”
He explains that for
WWF, “It is all of these anomalies that we need to sort out, and there is a big role for the UK government to play in getting the right outcome, when the EU timber regulation is reviewed next year.”
Alongside
WWF’s own manifesto asks, the charity is also part of a process called ‘Greener Britain’, which brings together leading environmental and conservation organisations in the UK.
”Between us we have agreed a range of policy proposals that we think will deliver a greener Britain, but also one that is leading the world environmentally.”
“Our hope is by presenting a strong and united message from these major environmental groups we can help to shape better manifestos.”
At election time, Nussbaum believes that environmental issues and action for climate change are not taken seriously enough.
“It doesn’t get debated in most election campaigns, which are mostly focused on other things.”
“We would expect all of the manifestos to have a reasonable amount about the environment, we would hope that all of them will have some strong proposals to shape the programme for the next government, and that these proposals would be based on what is in our manifesto and indeed in the ‘Greener Britain’ report.”
“A government that proclaims itself as the greenest ever must do a lot better. And we need the opposition to be saying that action on the environment would be a real priority for them.”
Nussbaum concludes: “We would hope that the next government, of whatever party or parties, will take action to safeguard the natural world so that people and nature thrive.”
WWFwill be holding a fringe event at each of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Party Conferences, looking at how each party is positioning itself on the environment ahead of the general election. Find more details
here
.