Failing to go Green - TheMoveChannel.co.uk

(EMAILWIRE.COM, July 03, 2009 ) Britain is failing in its key sustainability targets, finds a report published today by the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC)...

Gordon Miller, Journalist and Founder of sustainable residential development website whatgreenhome.com reports:

The SDC report, first published in the Independent on Sunday newspaper, notes that Britain is way off target to reduce its CO2 emissions by 20 per cent by 2010, and by 80 per cent by 2050. Furthermore, the SDC predicts the proportion of energy produced by renewables in 2020 will be just five per cent - falling far far short of the EU target of 20 per cent that Britain has signed up to meet.

Jonathon Porritt, outgoing SDC Chair, claims sustainability plays second fiddle to the drive for consumption-driven economic growth. "The thing that stands out is the very limited progress we've made on reducing inequity in our society... it's a startling indictment of this Government that more people will be living in fuel poverty at the time of next election than were living in fuel poverty in 1997," he said.

Porritt's strident attack is in response to the Government's failed target to eliminate fuel poverty in all households by 2016. The report finds that in 2006, there were approximately 3.5 million UK households (14 per cent) in fuel poverty, an increase of one million since 2005. And, despite some improvements, significant energy efficiency improvements are required to meet climate-change targets.

In the housing sector the Government has laid down its target for all new homes being built in England to be zero-carbon by 2016. Yet it has still to define what constitutes zero-carbon and exactly how housebuilders might achieve zero-carbon status. Residential dwellings in the UK account for 27 per cent of CO2 emissions.

Britain's 26 million existing dwellings - 70 per cent of which are expected to be in use by 2050 - are notoriously poorly insulated. Despite Government initiatives to encourage cavity wall insulation - which is a cost-effective measure to reduce CO2 emissions - 8.5 million UK households that could have it do not, notes the report.

In a statement in response to the report's findings ahead of publication, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said: "We're grateful to the SDC for the work they've put into this report. We look forward to its publication... and we will consider its content carefully."

The Government's record on sustainability has also come under attack from politicians and pressure groups. Greg Clark, Conservative spokesman on energy and climate change, said: "This is a time when we need action rather than spin."
Mike Childs of Friends of the Earth, said of the Government, "They've produced strategies and had press conferences but there hasn't been conviction... that sustainable development is of critical importance."

The condemnation of the Government's shortcomings on sustainability issues are underlined by the SDC's report that finds Britain remains the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in Europe. In 2007, CO2 emissions were 8.5 per cent below 1990 levels.

The litany of failings found by the report includes a shortfall on reaching recycling targets - the national household recycling rate has reached 34.5 per cent but falls short of the 40 per cent 2010 target, and the UK is also still heavily reliant on landfill. A third of the food we buy goes to waste.

The report also finds that the Government is failing to meet its targets for: air quality, biodiversity, and to reduce the dependence on cars.

Mr Porritt, who steps down this month from the SDC, said, "I feel some disappointment inevitably because I would have wanted to see faster progress," and cites a new energy White Paper as something "they (the Government) could, and should, have done four or five years ago."

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-ENDS-

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Dan Johnson
020 7952 7650
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