| Topic: | Is Gordon Brown, Yellow or Green ? | |
| Posted by: | David Giles | |
| Date/Time: | 02/03/08 23:16:00 |
| At the end of his Observer column today Andrew Rawnsley wrote: "We know that air travel is the fastest-growing source of carbon emissions and one of the most damaging. To the accompaniment of those protesters on the roof of the House of Commons, the consultation on the expansion of Heathrow has just come to its conclusion. This has been one of the most bogus 'consultation exercises' in the history of them. The government made up its mind to back a third runway and a sixth terminal at Heathrow. However ministers try to reconcile this with their commitments to the environment, there's just no escape from the big, brute fact: a larger airport means more planes. "In the one speech he has made about climate change since he became Prime Minister, Mr Brown made all sorts of commitments to tackling what he called the 'fateful choice'. The making of promises is easy compared with the delivering of them. The government last month signed up to a European Union target to raise the share of energy generated by renewable sources to 15 per cent by 2020. This is really not that ambitious. One of the benefits of being an island in the north east Atlantic is having a lot of wind and waves. Yet Britain is woefully behind not just the Germans and the Scandinavians, but countries such as Spain as well. Meeting that target, according to Mr Brown's strategy unit, will be 'challenging'. That's Sir Humphrey's euphemism for 'pigs will fly'. "An even more immediate choice faces the Prime Minister as Alistair Darling prepares to present the budget in less than a fortnight's time. Both Number 10 and the Treasury are under intense pressure not to increase fuel duties. The haulage and car lobbies have scared Labour since the fuel blockades in the autumn of 2000 which gave Tony Blair and Gordon Brown the biggest fright of their first term. The Prime Minister's next dilemma is whether to stand up to them or buckle in the budget. That will be a test of whether, when it comes to the environment, Gordon Brown's true colour is green or yellow. " Discuss. |