Copenhagen will be the focus of this sector's attention in the next eight weeks as the new Kyoto Agreement is fleshed out. Cutting emissions is important. In a finite world, and we do live in that, we should only use the resources we need and our planet can afford to give. That is just common sense and in the climate debate it also seems to be common ground.
Copenhagen might get an agreement on emissions reductions, but will it change mankind that much?
One of the most disturbing things about Copenhagen is that the people that will be making the decisions, and particularly those from the developing world, are the same people who in most instances have presided over a rapid growth in emissions. Their domestic policies often don't match their climate rhetoric. For example, who in Britain would believe that Gordon Brown is the impending saviour of the planet or that Tony Blair, perhaps the next President of the EU, who had a huge mandate when he was Prime Minister, will suddenly change their spots? Or that the Congress Party in India, which has huge infrastructure issues and the largest middle class in the world, is going to crack down, and police emissions, if it in anyway prejudices votes?
There is just too much entrenched thinking in domestic policy to effect radical change and the political classes who are likely to be entrusted with it are frankly not fit for purpose.
Climate change might be a global problem but solutions are local, very local, and most political parties are anything but local in their approach and policies. Over the last 200 years there has been a huge amount of centralisation in government, business, the workplace, infrastructure and essential services. None of the existing political parties in the UK are looking to reverse that. If we were more decentralised in the way we were gioverned, the way we worked and the way we educated our children, there would be less waste, fewer emissions and a better environment. Centralisation over the last 200 years has occurred because energy has been cheao, too cheap. As energy costs rise, surely the best way to cut emissions, then locally focussed policies will become, relatively, cheaper. In the UK, no party seems to be thinking that way in any major policy area. Is it time for a new, Local Party?
