Not quite the ‘Greenest government ever’…

By Kieran Roberts / @kieranlroberts

A year ago today, David Cameron visited the Department of Energy and Climate Change and said this: “I want us to be the greenest government ever. A very simple ambition and one that I’m absolutely committed to achieving.” Here’s why everything he said is false.

The coalition agreement boasted an ambitious green agenda and by immediately signing up to the 10:10 campaign (committing government departments to reduce their emission by 10% in a year) things didn’t look too bad, but that’s about as far as things progressed. In the past 365 days, the ‘greenest government ever’ have:

– scrapped the Sustainable Development Commission
– capped funding for Feed in Tarrifs
– abandoned plans to raise Aviation Tax and the Air Passenger duty
– neutered the Green Investment Bank so it can’t borrow until 2015 at the earliest
– slashed incentives for community solar projects
– cut the Bus Operators’ Subsidy Grant by 20%
– increased fuel duty for buses (8p per litre in 2012)
– cut local authorities funding for public transport by 28%
– dropped their pledge to introduce ‘fair rail fares’
– scrapped grants to install sources of renewable energy in homes
– attempted to sell off the country’s forests
– axed the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution
– as well as the Commission for Rural Communities
– failed to introduce their pledged measures on marine energy
– fractioned Labour’s Zero Carbon Homes policy to only deal with wasted heat and power
– so far refused to commit to a 4th carbon budget

And most heinously, legislation now deemed as ‘negotiable’ includes the clean air acts, the Town and Country Planning Act, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act and the entirety of the Climate Change Act, potentially undoing all of Labour’s green progress.

That long list of pledges and policies demonstrates how drastically, unashamedly and damagingly the government has turned its back on the task Cameron is evidently not so “absolutely committed to achieving.” It also outlines the responsibility we face in opposing it.

Over the past year, the coalition has held the environment hostage to deficit reduction. Despite the damage done already, considerable hope can be found in the backlash to the Forestry Commission sell-off. It proved that when the government won’t protect the environment, effective opposition can.

I wouldn’t dream of proposing ‘Green Labour’ but for our politics to be progressive it has to focus around sustainable development, as should our opposition. As the Energy Bill passes through parliament, we need to speak out against what the bill contains, for example how its levy on fuel bills could plunge more people in to fuel poverty. We also need to oppose it for what it doesn’t contain, most noticeably not a single quantitative target.

Whilst we’re deciding whether to be Blue/New/Purple/One Nation or (hopefully) just Labour, by the end of it all we’ll still be green. We need to start upping the opposition to the coalition’s environmental agenda and get people from outside our movement on our side and, hopefully, we can protect the rest of our environment like we did our forests.