In a lively meeting on the fringe of the Conservative Party conference last night, WWF chief executive David Nussbaum also called for a new independent body to be set up to monitor the government’s green credentials and advise on the environmental impacts of policy options.
Neil Carmichael, a member of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, defended the Conservative Party’s track record of success on environmental issues.
He argued that the Conservative Party had been active on protecting the environment historically. “There’s nothing new, in terms of the history of the Conservative Party, in being green.”
Carmichael noted the progress that has been made in producing wind farms. “In that respect, the coalition government has delivered” despite the difficulties involved, he said, and noted how the environmental agenda involved in the government’s international development work was also often forgotten, he argued.
On energy, Carmichael said there needed to be a focus on reducing CO2 emissions, which he believed nuclear power was the answer to. On the question of transport, he said this was about capacity, and there had been a failure to encourage the public to buy electric cars.
“I do think we have to think about a European approach to energy, as we do about the environment” he said, arguing for more connectivity and links. “We have really good models for that to happen” he believed “and we have the endorsement from people like the City of London”.
Geoffrey Lean, environmental correspondent at the Daily Telegraph agreed with Carmichael’s assertion that that right wing politicians had historically been more active on the environment than the left.
He described how splits between left and right had emerged from a tactical decision by the Tea Party movement in America, as something to frustrate the Democrats, and this had washed across the Atlantic to British politics.
The current coalition government had taken some progressive actions at the beginning of its tenure, Lean argued, but said this had since dropped away. Events had blown them off course, he said, the civil service had been an issue, and the mood from the United States had all conspired to mean the coalition’s environmental efforts had come unstuck.
“This issue is not going to go away” he warned. “Any government that sticks to a negative approach is going to be unelectable.”
WWF UK’s chief exec, David Nussbaum, stressed the “holistic approach” that the WWF was calling for. This was one of the key tests of whether the Conservatives had “gone green again”, he believed.
He explained WWF’s three key asks of the next government: save the world’s forests; build a clean 21st century economy; and ensure the UK has healthy rivers and seas.
The Government had shown some “outstanding” leadership on tackling illegal hunting, Nussbaum said, and there had been some good progress on water. However, he called for a new bill in the next parliament to ensure fresh water was protected.
We do need to hear “unequivocal statements” from the government, he said, stressing the Conservative’s long history of environmental protection work. There is “everything to play for” in the party’s rhetoric over the next few months, he argued.
Specifically, the Government should be championing conservation and the green economy. He also called for an office of environmental responsibility to be created, which would advise and inform government policy independently.
The Office for Budget Responsibility would be the best model for such a body, he explained; independently advising what policy choices were available to the government and what each policy’s impacts would be.
“It is time to dust off ‘vote blue, go green’” Nussbaum said.
Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy, suggested dramatically strengthening the Environmental Audit Committee, and having it replace the Environment Agency. Carmichael accepted that there were issues in the Environment Agency, but did not agree that it should be abolished.
Liebreich highlighted how the world is already switching to be an increasingly renewable energy-fuelled environment.
“The technologies exist to do this” he said, noting how wind power costs as little as 2.5p per kw hour, and solar costs as low as 5p per kw hour. “These technologies are now being adopted because they make sense in and of themselves”, regardless of their positive renewable story.
“This shift has to be enabled through tools that the UK is comfortable with, and the UK knows work” he argued. However, this could only happen if the UK went back to its roots, taking the view of the consumer rather than the producer.
It would also “not be quick” he stated, which was a major issue when dealing with the UK political cycles.
A member of the audience who used to work in the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said one key issue was that the department was like “a small child in a large playground” amongst other government departments.
Carmichael argued that “DECC should be split up”, with climate change being put back into an environment department. This would enable a department to have the clout to stand up to the rest of the government’s priorities, he believed.
Nussbaum added that energy ministers should serve longer terms in their role, to provide some consistency.
The answer to opposition to both wind power and fracking was to ensure locals received some of the benefits of the activity, said Liebreich. If this was in place, it would be a case of trusting localism, he said, warning that the coalition government attempting to implement either from a central position would be disastrous.