Originally published @ 11:15 pm, Thu 2nd Jun 2011
All involved in politics have a sense of when not to introduce party politics.
A good deal of it resides in established ways of working which essentially sustain our freedom, or the issue at stake is relatively slight.
It’s a darn site trickier when it concerns matters of great importance for which an answer hasn’t been found yet.
Such as how to deal with climate change.
It is only of some consolation to political party members that environmentalists are quickly divided too – often along lines of their favourite alternative energy solutions to today’s mix of oil, coal nuclear and the rest.
The Energy Bill came under focus at a convened by the Big Climate Connection in Derby last night, with leading members of the Derby political parties speaking and in the audience.
The hope that climate change would not be used as a political football was quickly expressed.
So Pauline Latham, the mid-Derbyshire Conservative MP who was one of the speakers, might have hoped. Except of course, punches were pulled in a meeting that was in some way trying to build up a consensus for action, including stiffening up the proposals in the Bill.
Labour MP Chris Williamson made it plain that there was much in the aims of the bill that was worthy, but the problems include a “Green Deal” whose interest rates are too high, the Green Investment Bank is under-funded and reducing the feed-in tariffs will hit the roll-out of PV solar panels. A plan to make ground operations at East Midlands Airport “carbon free” had already been abandoned.
Former Labour MP, Paddy Tipping, was there to talk about forests, promoting them as an absorber of carbon dioxide.
To which Pauline Latham had some points to make.
One, that the government had indeed botched up the sale of national forests.
Two, that when she and her husband had moved into their new home some 20 years ago, the first thing they had done was to plant 500 trees. This certainly took the audience back. Who has a garden big enough for 500 new trees? And how much land does that need? Given the size of the apple tree in my garden, I’m guessing it needs an acre, or around half of one of the larger football pitches – apparently Manchester City’s and Manchester United’s are the largest.
Initially, the challenges were thrown like gentle under-arm full tosses to first-timers in softball.
More testing were questions over the will to make change when acting on climate change. Pauline Latham kept saying David Cameron cared about this issue. Will Pauline stand firm to public pressure? Pauline would.
Then, why the drive on reinstating weekly general collections of waste when authorities found it greener to collect fortnightly?
Pertinent because today, Gedling Labour Group fulfil a major election promise to restore free car parking for local shopping centres, with £150,000 saved by making the collection of waste fortnightly again (instead of weekly during the summer).
This, just as Eric Pickles has announced targeted funding will be made available for councils that return to weekly collections, despite massive cuts in national general funding to councils that will affect services that help and care for people.
Now it might be that such money might be welcome for weekly collections of food waste, although the sealed bins used in Nottingham should do the job for a fortnight.
For general waste, not a great use of public money and not very green.
But it is all voluntary, protested Pauline Latham, and a response to public pressure.
So now the challenges became stronger. Just why had Pauline Latham as a Conservative City Councillor, and the Lib Dem City Councillors present at the meeting, voted to scrap the Duffield Road bus lane? How green was that?
This led to a row after the meeting, where the punches not thrown by a Lib Dem Councillor were not so metaphoric.
All of which makes you wonder about the notion of political parties setting party points aside when considering the climate. For the point is that parties offer choice in the way forward to tackle climate change, and only a dictatorship could point just one way forward.
Derby North and Mid Derbyshire Big Climate Reconnection
A Big Climate Reconnection with Chris Williamson MP and Pauline Latham MP. Come along to this public meeting to learn about Climate Change, why the Energy Bill and Climate Finance is so important and raise local climate related issues with your local MPs.
Chris Williamson MP for Derby North
Pauline Latham MP for Mid Derbyshire
Paddy Tipping (on Saving our Forests), National Vice-President of the Ramblers Association
Liz Hutchins, Friends of the Earth
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