Transition Derby

Last night at the Joseph Wright Centre saw an excellent crowd of sixty people listen to and then take part in an extensive Q&A session, which could have gone on for a lot longer because there were so many questions being asked of the four speakers – Liz Hutchins FOE, Chris Williamson MP, Pauline Latham MP and Paddy Tipping Save Sherwood Forest.

Everybody had ten minutes to discuss “Will the Government Energy Bill work?” and Liz Hutchins, Friends of the Earth opened the batting with an extremely well laid out, pragmatic and detailed talk, which covered the following points:

• the balance sheet for the Govenrment’s “Greenest Government yet ” had some positive points like stopping Heathrow but of the seventy seven Green Commitments made, only 25% (nineteen) have achieved anything and 75% (fifty eight) haveachieved little or nothing
• the situation has been improved this last week with Chris Hune’s drive to get 50% reduction by 2027 accepted by the Cabinet
• the Opposition has had a slow start, which is quite surprising as Ed Millband used to be the Labour Minister for the Environmental and he needs to step up more
• the Energy Bill should be cross party agreement as it is too importanmt to squabble over ands will involve massibe cuts to achieve 80% by 2050
• the Bill must be sytronger with three clasues included:

1. local councils must be given targets to reach and a framework to work with
2. local councils must have statutory responsibility to achieve specicif targets across all the UK not just in some areas
3. Fuel Poverty must be stopped with a specicifc startegy adopted, including the need to insulate the 21 million UK houses as they account for 40% of the CO2 emissions

• It will also improve the health of the peoplel living in them
• As a high % of these houses are in the rental sector, landlords must be forced to improve their properties
• the Green Deal must be heavily promoted
• to include everybody in the improvements, the loans must be paid for out of fuel bill savings.

Liz was followed by Chris Williamson Labour MP for Derby North with the following comments:

• the Energy bill does not deliver what the Government said the’d do and was rather like a “flacid lettuce” and the Government must resolve the situation to avoid the catastrophe that awaits us
• as leader of the Derby City Council in 2008 he had attempted to have adopted a policy of 25% reduction by 2012 and Carbon Neutral by 2020 but had not been successful
• things were improving but it was too slow
• it was very imprtant to have cross party agreement but the bill does not go far enough
• it was hopeless to expect the utitilty companies to pick up the bill for Fuel Poverty
• the Green Bank iss a good idea but it needs the £4bn that was originally envisaged not the £1bn the Treasury will give it
• the targets are very welcome but we need a solid infrasturure to achieve it and to match the actions required
• Derby with its engineering is very well placed to profit from the new Green Industry, especially with RR having the nuclear palnt on Raynesway
• we must invest more in CCS – Carbon Sequestration – and not just develop one plant but the four that was originally planned for
• we must consider new creative ideas like trees that suck CO2 out of the atmosphere being proposed by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers
• Overall the Government must provide leadership on a local and national scale.

Pauline Latham, Conservatiev MP for Mid Derbyshire was next and her key points were:

• the situation is serious and must have cross party support
• it is big project and does have a global perspective and the UK must show leadership
• the Government is active with the Green Bank, was investing £200 in the National Grid and £400 million in Electricity generation
• David Cameron was fully committed to pushing this agenda onwards and we recognise the botched sell off of the Forests but Labour has been selling off forests for some time and nobody knew. The fact that we are a”listening” government and heard what the community wanted and we stopped the sell off
• the Energy Bill is OK although Chris Hune has requested that the Fuel Poverty issue be looked at
• the Western World must help poorer countries and where they are in terms of their survival. for example their need to burn wood, thuis reducing forests in Afriac and Sout America as they don’t have the enough electricity for their needs
• overall this Government was a”listening” govenemrnet and must be given a chance

Paddy Tipping from Save Sherwood Forest was next and his key points:

• forests and woodland were crucial for sequestering CO2 and as a carbon sink they extract 40 % of their weight in carbon
• tropical forsts are very imprtant for humands and we musy have mechansims to save them
• the UK is only coverd by 5% by woodland where France and Germany is 15%
• we need billions of hectares of trees planted to extarct the CO2 from the atmosphere
• 500,000 people said No to the Government over the “forest sell off” and as a result the Forestry Commission will not be sold off but they will make 25% of their labour redundant. This will include many Community Rangers whoi have been extremely helpful patrolliong the many slag heaps which have been planted with trees
• the public want forests for education and relaxation and they must not be cut
• forsts are foreever and theu mustr remain that way as they are crucial to help stop Climate Change
• people like us must stand up like we did over the “sell off” and demonstrate that our landsape is important for us and our children and our children’s children for generations to come.

We then had almost an hour of Q&A, which could easily have gone on for another hour or more. Here are a few of the questions asked:

How can we reduce or stop local UK air travel? – Chris Williamson said we had to bring peoiple with us and sell the idea of smaller carbon footprint and it was not going to work by forcing people to wear hair shirts and banning air travel, although more train use and HS2 is a good idea

How can we improve and insulate our 21 million houses? – general agreement on the panel was that it needed a concerted strategy

Would there be resistance to these changes and would the Governement stand firm and not give in? – Pauline said that here would be resistance and that the Government would be firm but it was up to all of us to talk to their family, friends and colleagues at work to explain what was needed. the Goveenrment could not do it by themselves

Why was incineration still being considered when there was so much pollution and dioxins produced? – Paddy Tipping said that the “Age of Incineration” was over as recyling was getting so much better and incineration was a process of the past

Is not planning a crucial aspect of Climate Change? – everybody agreed that planing was very important and more needed to be done so that new buildings for schools, offices and factories took into all the technology to ensure buildings were as low carbon as possible

Why was the bus lane removed from Duffield Road if we are in such a difficult situation? this question was greeted with losts of noise and laughter, and not really answered as the instigators of this decision were not present

Overall an excellent talk and panel discussion, which demonstrated that a growing number of people in Derby are very concerned about the Energy situation and that more must be done. At least the panel agreed that “cross party agreement” must be adhered to if we are going to save our climate.

©William Barron

Transition Derby

June 2^nd 2011