Originally published @ 9:05 am, Sun 13th Dec 2009
An interesting meeting hosted by Mark Todd MP, yesterday in Swadlincote, on the challenges posed by climate change.
Timed halfway through the Copenhagen summit, members of the public met and gave suggestions for persuading people that change is needed, what people and communities can do to support change, and what public agencies (especially local ones) can do to assist.
No doubt, Mark will be publishing the outcome of the event soon.
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Nationally, and internationally, we will need to find a way of pricing greenhouse gas emissions, since in making choices, price is what we’re all used to when making choices. This may more naturally drive the development and deployment of new technologies to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And push on better energy efficiency.
Since businesses and public agencies generally have well-defined priorities, it’s hard to require that they make the environment their top priority, so care and concern for the environment needs to be woven in to their service and project plans. For instance, the latest new schools and refurbished schools are being commissioned for excellence in supporting the education of our children, but are being constructed to higher environmental standards (called BREAM). Including the environment in the audits of public agencies will also introduce more accountability.
Given South Derbyshire rates poorly in the East Midlands in terms of the energy-efficiency of our homes, better insulation (and lower fuel bills) should offer opportunity to make an easy impact, and the Government are helping by proposing a “scrap a boiler” scheme in this week’s pre-Budget report.
Other challenges include –
ï a better network of bus services, with perhaps a greater role for community transport if operators like Arriva can’t do it;
ï better re-use and recycling of waste, including more anaerobic digestion, now that the technology exists to pump the methane produced into the existing mains network;
ï catching up with northern Europe on some of their basic practices of ground-source heat pumping, taking advantage of the temperature 20 feet underground always being 12 degrees centigrade.
Helping the third world develop in a green way, to make up for our centuries of burning fossil fuels, was announced on Friday in conjunction with our partners in the European Union.
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