Budget: Environmentally friendly or not?

[HighPressure]

Government policy 'An Environmentally Sustainable World' released today (I think) as part of the budget:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi...08_chapter6.pdf

I wondered what people on both sides of the argument thought about it? For my part it looks like complete and utter incoherent babble, short of any real action but big on increasing revenue. It has percentage cuts in CO2 written all over it yet, I can't see the vehicle which will get us there, am I missing something? Announced today a whopping 26million to help homes reduce their carbon footprint, WOW we can all do a lot with @£2 each that should really bring our CO2 usage tumbling. I particularly like Paragraph 6.38 on Aviation, this should be renamed sustainable pollution policy I think. The document even talks about conservation of Water but no mention of the water companies responsibility in this?

Basically I find the entire document a waste of time amounting to no environmental policy what so ever and about as sustainable as Mr Brown's job.

What do others think?

[Thundery wintry showers]

Yes, there seems to be a lot of very half-hearted "environmental" measures that will continue incremental tax rises, and not do much if anything for the environment. As for the alignment of carrots and sticks it seems there's a lot of half-hearted use of the stick and no use of the carrot, and thus a slight annoyance for the public and no environmental gain.

I'm not too fond of the move away from taxing fuel consumption and towards fixed-rate penalties like higher tax bands for pollutive vehicles, as it doesn't penalise excess consumption directly, rather penalising potential for excess consumption. A person who drives a clean car with excessive regularity may end up emitting more pollution than a person who drives a relatively pollutive car occasionally. It's obviously going to be correlated, but I favour the direct approach of penalising consumption.

It's not as bad for this as the full-on idea of abolishing fuel duty altogether and channelling all taxes into road pricing though (which the economists that rule our country are rather fond of).

Also the aviation tax idea seems quite half-hearted and, again, likely to inconvenience users and do little to protect the environment, what with the plans for mass airport expansions still in place.

[Sharkbait]

I'm not too fond of the move away from taxing fuel consumption and towards fixed-rate penalties like higher tax bands for pollutive vehicles, as it doesn't penalise excess consumption directly, rather penalising potential for excess consumption. A person who drives a clean car with excessive regularity may end up emitting more pollution than a person who drives a relatively pollutive car occasionally. It's obviously going to be correlated, but I favour the direct approach of penalising consumption.

Me neither, I do have a 2 litre car but as I car share, it only gets used 1 in every three weeks for a 16 mile return journey to work, yet I'll be penalised more than somebody driving a less polluting car every day, the math doesn't add up. If I was to buy a smaller car I wouldn't be able to get all 4 people in the car.

Edited March 12, 2008 by potsy

[VillagePlank]

Environmentally friendly? Don't think so. At least he kept the green stuff to a minimum - and in that, I mean, that he doesn't believe in it and he shouldn't be doing it as a mechanism for raising taxes.

Meanwhile planning permission for raping the Earth continues ....

[HighPressure]

I often get accused of being biased in this argument but I have genuinely tried to look at it from both sides and cannot see that anyone will be happy with it? If you don't believe in AGW you will get taxed to the hilt and if you do it promises no effective mechanism for the cuts in CO2 being banded about. I find it hard to understand how a government supposedly serious on green issues is not laughed off the international stage when it states itself as a global leader in the fight to reduce emissions. Is there someone more clued up out there who can add up all these policies and tell me if it results in the sort of drop in emissions stated? I don't think it does in fact the only result I can see is the possible curbing of increases?

[The PIT]

Me neither, I do have a 2 litre car but as I car share, it only gets used 1 in every three weeks for a 16 mile return journey to work, yet I'll be penalised more than somebody driving a less polluting car every day, the math doesn't add up. If I was to buy a smaller car I wouldn't be able to get all 4 people in the car.

I've got a 1.4 litre and you can get four people in that. Unless they're overweight that is.

[shuggee]

Here's a great example of joined-up Government thinking:

Let's build a third runway at Heathrow and Terminal Six. In the meantime let's not consider building a domestic high speed railway line that would kill dead short-haul flights in the UK and dramatically cut carbon emissions, or a rolling-programme of network electrification on the railways. Pure genius.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Yes, and to boot, the third Heathrow terminal may well cost at least as much money (which is what the Government's top priority generally is IMO).

As one of my long-standing friends would sarcastically say, "Excellent!"

[pottyprof]

I've got a 1.4 litre and you can get four people in that. Unless they're overweight that is.

I think the point there PIT, is the fact that a 2L car used once every few weeks is less polluting than a 1.4L car used every day. I'm a big believer of more tax on fuel and not have to pay road tax. The polluter would pay in a fairer way.

And Shuggs.. I agree totally with what you are saying. Technology is such now that any train/tram system can actually feed electricity back into the network. We want green transport and the railways are the very thing we should be spending money on for both passenger and freight transportation.

[The PIT]

My point was you could simply get a smaller car and they can sit more than one person. Basically you don't need the 2L.

Another strange one is the latest road tax on larger cars. If you own a old 1.8 car and above you don't have to pay the increase in road tax. However if you own a newer car you do. Yet the newer car should be more efficient than the older car. All this is going to do is increase the usage of older less efficient cars.