Rob Edwards

Winning the war on cars: how ministers plan to cut climate pollution

from Sunday Herald, 5 September 2010

Stricter and lower speed limits, higher parking charges and a five pence per kilometre road pricing scheme are being proposed by the Scottish government as part of a major new offensive to cut the pollution that is disrupting the climate.

A key policy report leaked to the Sunday Herald reveals that ministers are also considering big increases in spending on walking and cycling, grants for low-carbon cars, and boosts for buses and trains.

A further series of radical plans are being drawn up to meet the ambitious target of cutting climate pollution 42% by 2020. These include a renewed £1 billion-plus home insulation scheme, a massive tree-planting programme, bans on dumping waste as landfill, and moves to force farmers to clean up their act.

The government’s new package of 30 “proposals and policies” to combat climate change has been warmly welcomed by environmentalists. But some of the measures have already provoked the ire of the car lobby, businesses and farmers.

The Association of British Drivers dismissed the curbs on cars as “lunatic”. They would spark widespread anger, claimed Peter Spinney, the association’s co-ordinator in Scotland.

Delay and disputes over climate change targets

from Sunday Herald, 5 September 2010

Crucial government targets to cut climate pollution have been delayed by a fierce political row over how ambitious they should be.

By law annual targets for 2011 and 2010 should have been agreed and published three months ago, but that has been prevented by disagreements between the SNP and opposition parties.

The delay is frustrating environmental groups, who are worried that real action to reduce emissions could be postponed. The report listing the necessary polices, which has been leaked to the Sunday Herald, will not be published until after the annual targets have been set.

Revealed: the £13 billion that RBS puts into polluting industries

from Sunday Herald, 22 August 2010

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has provided nearly £13 billion worth of funding to the world’s dirty oil and gas industries since it was bailed out by the taxpayer two years ago.

The figures, being revealed today by the Sunday Herald, are the first authoritative and detailed account of the bank’s controversial financing of the companies blamed for causing global warming.

Among the 66 companies backed by RBS are well-known names like BP, Shell, ConocoPhilips, Tullow Oil, Trafigura and Cairn Energy. The bank has helped them raise many hundreds of millions of pounds to finance oil exploration, extraction and development around the world.

To environmental groups and the hundreds of climate protestors currently camped on RBS’s lawn near Edinburgh, the revelations prove that the bank is guilty of an unforgivable crime against the planet.

But to the bank, which does not dispute the figures, they just show that someone has to raise the money to extract the fuels on which we all depend before we can work out how to phase them out.

The singer who wants to save Greenland from oil

for Sunday Herald, 22 August 2010

Simon Lynge is watching his country melt. Every time he goes home to Greenland on the edge of the Arctic, something has gone.

When he was last there in June, the snow had disappeared from the hill, and there were no icebergs in the water. It was 28 degrees centigrade, the hottest he has ever known.

Previously, the drinking water that used to supply Alluitsoq, the small village where he was brought up, ran out. The mountain lakes from which it flowed had evaporated in the heat.

His country is changing so fast that he fears for its future, and he has no doubts what is to blame. “We’re spewing too much carbon dioxide into the air and drilling for more oil makes it worse,” he says.

“To paraphrase an old native American saying: only when the last tree has died, the last river been poisoned, and the last fish been caught, will we realise that we cannot eat money.”

The protestors dancing around RBS

from Sunday Herald, 22 August 2010

It’s been a strange few days for staff at the imposing headquarters of the Royal Bank for Scotland (RBS) at Gogarburn, just outside Edinburgh. Late on Wednesday evening, a group of green protestors “swooped” into their grounds and set up this year’s climate camp.

Since then tents, teepees, brightly coloured toilets, a field kitchen and a wind turbine have been set up, and there’s been talk of a permaculture garden. The police have arrived, while the campers have formed affinity groups, run workshops, and planted banners.

On Friday, more than 100 activists penetrated the security cordon that had been thrown around the bank’s HQ. One woman “disguised as a banker” gained entry to the building and superglued her hands to the front desk.

Bank workers were invited to lunch at the climate camp, to learn about what the protestors were doing and why. Some demonstrators entered the HQ’s revolving doors and held what they called a “dance party”, before listening to speeches about RBS’s alleged evils.

Widespread opposition to new coal plant

from Sunday Herald, 01 August 2010

Government-backed plans for a huge new coal plant are running into a rising tide of opposition from a powerful range of groups worried about pollution, wildlife and tourism.

The £3 billion scheme by Clydeport’s owners, Peel Holdings, to build Scotland’s first new fossil fuel power station for decades at Hunterston in North Ayrshire is facing thousands of objections from faith groups, international aid charities, wildlife agencies, environmentalists and businesses.

Amongst those who have now come out against the scheme are Christian Aid, Oxfam, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, Largs Yacht Haven and the Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park Authority. A new coal station would harm people in developing countries, they say, as well as threatening otters, birds and businesses locally.

The breadth of opposition to the Hunterston plant creates problems for the Scottish government, which has already endorsed it as part of Scotland’s National Planning Framework. The plant has also been rejected by a majority of the Scottish Parliament, and it is the subject of a court challenge from objectors.

A public consultation by Scottish ministers is to due to close on 20 August. But the Sunday Herald understands that well over 5,000 representations have already been received, the vast majority of which are objections.

Call for banking to go green

for Sunday Herald, 25 July 2010

The UK government will be urged this week to green the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) so that nearly £200 billion can be invested in wind farms, electric cars and high-speed rail networks over the next decade.

A report to be published tomorrow will urge ministers not to scrap plans for public investment in a new environmentally-friendly bank. Instead, campaigners say, they should transform RBS into a vehicle for backing clean technology across the world.

The report was written by a former PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant, James Leaton, for two groups campaigning to cut climate pollution, the World Development Movement (WDM) and Platform.

Council accused of breaking climate law

from Sunday Herald, 18 July 2010

A major local authority has been accused of breaking the law by failing to cut climate pollution, raising the first prospect of a legal challenge under Scotland’s world-leading climate legislation.

Aberdeenshire Council is under attack for not insisting on tough enough measures to improve energy insulation in new homes and offices. Its proposed local development plan contains less ambitious targets than those specified in the 2009 Climate Change Act.

According to the Scottish Greens, this means that the council is exposing itself to court action in the future. The council says its stance has been backed by the Scottish government, though this was not confirmed by a government spokesman.

A public consultation on Aberdeenshire’s proposed development plan, which has been backed by a majority of councillors, was launched this month. In its supplementary guidance the plan promises to only approve new buildings “if the predicted carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by at least 30% beyond the 2007 building regulations’ carbon dioxide emissions standard.”

Home insulation scheme failing to reach many homes

from Sunday Herald, 27 June 2010

A scheme designed to boost home insulation and cut climate pollution has reached fewer than one per cent of households in Scotland, prompting condemnation and calls for action from critics.

A new report from Consumer Focus Scotland reveals that the Scottish government’s home insulation scheme has only been taken up by one in ten of those targeted. And it only targeted fewer than five per cent of Scottish households.

The performance of the scheme has been damned as “embarrassingly poor” by the Scottish Greens and energy campaigners. But ministers promise that they will do better in the future.

Consumer Focus Scotland, which replaced the Scottish Consumer Council and other consumer groups two years ago, has investigated the effectiveness of ten area-based energy efficiency projects across the country.

It concludes that, though their performances vary, there is much that can be learnt from them. They could play a “key role” in helping to encourage more people to insulate their homes, it says.

Anger over repeated delays to energy-saving plan

from Sunday Herald, 13 June 2010

A plan to help householders and business save energy and money in Scotland has been delayed for the sixth time, sparking outrage from opposition politicians and environmental groups.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the Scottish government’s long-awaited energy efficiency action plan - meant to boost home insulation, aid the installation of smart meters and kick-start small-scale renewable and heat technologies - has been postponed until the autumn.

The delay calls into doubt the commitment of Scottish ministers to cutting climate pollution, say critics. And it undermines their efforts to promote Scotland’s “world-leading” targets to tackle climate change on the international stage, they claim.

The action plan was first proposed back in December 2004 by the then environment minister, Ross Finnie. The previous Labour and Liberal Democrat administration said it would be published in 2005, then 2006 and then 2007.

Ministers under fire for failing to green government

from Caledonian Mercury, 26 May 2010

Scottish ministers have been condemned by their own expert advisers for failing to meet most of their targets for cutting pollution and greening government.

Their performance has been described as “poor” and “worrying” by the Sustainable Development Commission, which was set up to advise ministers on environmental policy. Ministers will only be forced to improve if they are subject to external scrutiny, the commission warned.

The Scottish government’s failure to live up to its much-vaunted green credentials has also been lambasted as depressing and hypocritical by environmental groups and opposition politicians. In its defence, the government says that it is now trying harder.

When ministers’ latest environmental performance report was published a few days ago, the spin was all positive. “The Scottish government is taking action to improve its environmental performance as it pledges to lead by example,” boasted the news release.

Though you wouldn’t know it from the blurb, the real picture revealed by the report for 2008-09 was very different. Of the eleven environmental targets ministers set themselves, eight are on track to be missed.

SNP face defeat over climate targets

from Sunday Herald, 23 May 2010

The SNP government could suffer an embarrassing defeat in the Scottish parliament this week unless it toughens up its targets for cutting climate pollution.

Labour, LibDems and the Greens are threatening to combine to throw out ministers’ latest plans to reduce the country’s carbon emissions by just half a per cent in 2011 and one per cent in 2012.

The opposition parties all point out that the government’s targets are way below the three per cent a year promised in the SNP’s 2007 manifesto for Holyrood. Ministers’ targets are “woefully inadequate”, they say, and in breach of their election promises.

“The SNP’s failure to set meaningful targets for reducing carbon emissions shows they cannot be trusted on this important issue,” Labour’s environment spokeswoman, Sarah Boyack MSP, told the Sunday Herald.

“The SNP’s own manifesto promised mandatory carbon reductions of three per cent per annum, but ministers now say this won’t be achieved until 2018. Their target for this year is only 0.05 per cent and shows they are not taking the issue sufficiently seriously.”

Government targets to cut climate pollution rejected by MSPs

from Caledonian Mercury, 18 May 2010

Scottish ministers may be forced to up their targets for cutting climate pollution over the next two years after their plans were roundly rejected as “seriously inadequate” by MSPs.

Labour, LibDem and Green MSPs on the Scottish Parliament’s climate change committee today combined to vote down the SNP government’s aim of cutting carbon emissions by just half a percent in 2011 and in 2012.

Ministers now have to decide whether to risk another rejection by putting their proposals before the full parliament, or to come up with improved targets. They only have two weeks to act because climate change law says that annual targets have to be in place by 1 June.

The SNP manifesto for the 2007 Holyrood election promised “mandatory carbon reduction targets of 3% per annum“ in order to reach a 42% cut by 2020. But that aim was watered down to 0.5% for the next couple of years on the grounds that it would be too hard to meet.

The statutory instrument that would have brought in the annual targets was thrown out by five votes to three at a meeting of the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee. “These proposals from SNP ministers were seriously inadequate,” said the committee’s convenor, Green MSP Patrick Harvie.

Fears over carbon capture plan as costs rise

from Sunday Herald, 09 May 2010

Rising costs have prompted new fears for one of the central planks of the Scottish government’s strategy for cutting climate pollution.

Scottish ministers want to keep burning coal in power stations by developing technology to capture and store the carbon dioxide they belch out. But new evidence from Norway suggests that this could cost nearly three times more than expected.

This comes on top of recent expert reports casting doubt on the feasibility of carbon carbon and storage (CCS) - the great green hope of the energy industry. The technology is, however, strongly defended by its backers in Scotland.

One of Norway’s flagship CCS projects is run by the state-owned gas company, Gassco. But it has revealed that the estimated costs have rocketed from £0.4 billion in 2007 to £1.2 billion now.

RBS chairman to meet protesters

from Caledonian Mercury, 27 April 2010

The chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Sir Philip Hampton, is to meet with environment and human rights campaigners this week in an attempt to defuse escalating protests about the bank’s “dirty” investments.

The bank’s annual general meeting (AGM) in Edinburgh on Wednesday has become the target for a wide range of protest groups. They accuse RBS of putting up to £10 billion of public money into fossil fuel and mining projects in Canada, India and elsewhere which wreck the environment and violate human rights.

RBS was bailed out for £45.5 billion by the UK government during the banking crisis and is now 84% owned by British taxpayers. It has argued in the past that it cannot be held responsible for all the actions of the companies in which it invests.

But by agreeing to meet with campaign groups in Edinburgh after the AGM, Hampton may be signalling a new approach. “We are keen to listen to their perspective,” said an RBS spokeswoman.

“We recognise that a broad range of stakeholders have a very legitimate interest in the way that we conduct our business. Although we will not always agree with the many different opinions expressed, we welcome feedback and constructive engagement.”

RBS under fire for more ‘dirty’ investments

from Sunday Herald, 25 April 2010

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is facing a welter of fresh allegations about its multi-million pound investments in dirty and dangerous industries as campaigners prepare to protest at its annual general meeting in Edinburgh this week.

The bank, which is 84% owned by British taxpayers, has now been accused of backing a highly controversial mining operation in India. It is also said to have invested in companies which make cluster bombs, which are to be banned worldwide because of their “horrific” impacts.

Campaigners are demanding that RBS totally rethinks its investments to respect human rights and the environment. The bank, however, believes it is being unfairly targeted, and is becoming privately frustrated at the attention it is receiving.

The human rights group, Amnesty International, says that RBS or its subsidiaries have provided financial support worth £163 million to Vedanta Resources, a British-owned mining company, since 2004-05. The company runs a large aluminium refinery in Orissa, an impoverished region in central India.

An investigation by Amnesty found that the refinery had flouted the law and undermined the rights of local communities in the Niyamgiri Hills. Vedanta was accused of displacing landless workers without compensation, and polluting water used by people for drinking and bathing.

Protest against RBS investment in ‘bloody oil’

from Sunday Herald, 18 April 2010

George Poitras has come a long way to make his point. From his traditional Mikisew Cree homelands on the shores of Lake Athabasca in northern Alberta, he has journeyed to Murray Place in the centre of Stirling, to confront the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)

“My people are dying,” he said, “and anyone involved in the tar sands industry must take responsibility for that, including those that help fund it like RBS.”

RBS, which is now 84% owned by taxpayers, stands accused of supplying loans worth nearly £5 billion over the last three years to companies involved in extracting oil from underground tar sands in northern Canada.

The industry is not just dirty oil, it is “bloody oil”, insisted Mr Poitras (46), the former chief of the Mikisew Cree First Nation. He blamed the high rates of cancer amongst his people on toxic pollutants from massive mining operations 240 kilometres upstream. 

Over a hundred people in the small lakeside village of Fort Chipewyan have died from cancer, out of a First Nation population of about 1,200. Studies have suggested that the cancer rate is 43% higher than normal, and some of the cancers are rare varieties linked to contaminants.

Businesses set for ‘disastrous’ boom in pollution and profits

from Sunday Herald, 11 April 2010

Big businesses are in for a pollution and profit bonanza because of loopholes in the European scheme to limit climate emissions opened up by the economic recession.

New figures reveal that companies will now be able either to boost their climate pollution - or to sell unused pollution permits for millions of pounds, enabling others to increase their emissions.

The climate-wrecking boon for businesses has arisen because the recession has caused emissions across Europe to fall below the caps imposed by the European Commission for the first time.

Companies in Scotland that stand to gain include INEOS, the English petrochemical company which runs three polluting plants at Grangemouth, and Lafarge, the French-owned company that operates a cement works near Dunbar in East Lothian.

The prospects were “potentially disastrous”, according to Dr Richard Dixon, director of the environment group, WWF Scotland. “As it stands businesses across Europe will be able to make more profit by exploiting this loophole to carry on polluting pretty much as usual,” he told the Sunday Herald.

Row over ‘deluded dinosaurs’ and green ‘looney tunes’

from Sunday Herald, 21 March 2010

A heated and colourful war of words has erupted over a new advertising campaign in which the Scottish government’s tourism agency, Visit Scotland, has teamed up with the low-budget airline, Ryanair, to promote cheap flights to Scottish cities.

Green groups have branded Ryanair a “deluded dinosaur” and accused Visit Scotland of irresponsibly boosting climate pollution. They claim that their joint promotion could end up breaching the Scottish government’s rules on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Ryanair, however, has hit back by accusing the greens of singing “looney tunes” and being “economic illiterates”. Their policies would lead to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the tourism industry, the airline claims.

Last week, Visit Scotland launched ‘perfect day’ adverts across 14 major newspapers in England and Ireland. They offer one-way Ryanair flights to Prestwick, Edinburgh and Aberdeen for as little as £6, excluding fees and charges.

Ryanair flights are promoted on Visit Scotland’s website, and the tourism agency’s logo appears on the airline’s website. “It’s easy to experience all that Scotland has to offer,” says one advert, encouraging people to plan a “perfect break”.

New gas plant runs into opposition on pollution

from Sunday Herald, 07 March 2010

 

Plans for a new gas-fired power station in Scotland have run into major opposition from environmental groups concerned about the climate pollution it will produce.

Spanish-owned Scottish Power wants to replace the dirty old coal plant at Cockenzie near Edinburgh with a cleaner gas plant. But it will still emit millions of tonnes of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and could end up wasting vast amounts of heat.

Three major environmental groups have lodged objections to the plant, which is currently being considered by the Scottish government. It is not needed, they argue, and will conflict with ministers’ plans to “decarbonise” electricity generation.

“This proposal is just not good enough to be built in Scotland,” said Dr Richard Dixon, the director of WWF Scotland. “With our tough climate targets we cannot afford to be locking ourselves into new power stations that will be major carbon emitters for many years to come.”