Examination of Witnesses (Questions 685-699)
MS HELEN
DEAVIN, REVEREND
DAVID HARES,
MR GLENN
BUCKINGHAM AND
MS BELINDA
JAMES
31 JANUARY 2007
Q685 Chairman: Just to be awkward, I
will start from the other end of the table. We are going to go
to Belinda James first, who describes herself as a householder
in a rural village. She runs her own design and marketing business
with her partner, and CRed is one of her customers. Belinda James,
the floor is yours.
Ms James: I was hoping that I
was going to be last, so that I could say, "Everybody has
said everything already"! First, thank you for giving me
the opportunity today to come and speak. I do appreciate it. The
reason I wanted to come and talk to you is from the householder's
perspective, and to talk about the frustrations and problems I
encounter on a daily basis in trying to be a greener person and
to try and do my bit. What I read and hear about climate change
in the press, the media and everywhere does terrify me. I know
that people say we must not be alarmist about it, but I think
it is alarming. At the end of the day, it is incredibly alarming.
I am probably going to say things that people here are all well
aware of, but there are the predictions of loss of life, where
we are not talking about hundreds of thousands but potentially
millions of people dying because of the effects of drought, flooding
and severe weather conditions. There are predictions of our losing
possibly a third of our animals and plant life by the year 2050.
In my lifetime alone, all of 40 years, the Arctic ice cap has
melted by 40%. I cannot understand how people do not find that
terrifying or alarming, because the thought of my children and
everyone's children not being able to see some of the things that
I have been so lucky to see makes me wonder whether life would
be worth living. It sounds very dramatic, I know, but what if
you cannot go and see polar bears or glaciers or snow-capped mountains,
because they will not be there—and we are talking about
potentially an incredibly short timeline? That sounds as if I
am standing on my high horse here, but I believe that we all have
a moral obligation to protect the world for future generations
and I believe that this is a view held by most people in the world.
I acknowledge that I am part of the problem. I am responsible,
I am told, for producing approximately nine tonnes of CO2 a year,
which is pretty horrendous. I know what I should be doing. I know
that I can do things like offset my carbon emissions by planting
a few trees, which we do. However, I also know that is not the
answer; it just allays my feelings of guilt if I fly somewhere
wonderful, to Mauritius or somewhere, and I know that I can just
plant three trees and that gets rid of the CO2 emissions I have
created. Thinking about what I was going to say today has made
me realise that I am not doing as much as I should be doing or
could be doing. It has made me realise that I am frustrated by
my own lack of commitment and action. I thought that I was going
to come here and tell you how frustrated I was with your, or the
Government's, lack of action; but it is also mine. I do some things,
and that is why friends and family consider me to be a green-lifestyle
person. The electricity we have in our home comes from a renewable
tariff. We drive a relatively efficient car; a house which we
have had insulated, roof and floors, to the highest standards
we can. We obviously have things like low-energy light bulbs and
we choose low-energy appliances in the home. From a work perspective,
we encourage our clients to do their bit by choosing—and
it may sound small—printers and people who have good green
credentials, who use environmentally friendly paper and also try
to reduce the amount of wastage, namely by not printing more things
than you need to. I need you to go back and tell the Government
what they can do to help us. As I said, I think that the panels
have already said many of the things that I am going to say. Many
people do know what to do and are already doing things but I think—and
I cannot believe that I am saying this—it will come down
to legislation. I do not really like to be told what to do; I
like to have the choice and be given the information so that I
can make decisions for myself. However, if I am—as I have
now discovered—this person who is keen on protecting the
environment and I am not doing my bit, then there will be a lot
of other people who are not either, and I do think that the only
way will be through legislation. Some of the members of the Committee
have voiced their concerns that people will not tolerate this
but, speaking to people I know, including many young people—we
held a group meeting here for some 16 to 18-year-olds, talking
to them about their views on climate change—they all know
what to do, but when we say, "Do you do it?" they say,
"No". We said, "What can we do to make you do these
things?" and I was really surprised to hear them say that
they felt legislation would be the only way. These are things
that have already been said here this morning, but I think that
you have to encourage people to look at changing their lifestyles,
their habitats, their expectations, and to manage their expectations.
Another member of the panel this morning talked about everyone
watching Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, but it is a brilliant
DVD and everyone I have spoken to who has seen it—and unfortunately
there are not that many—have felt the same. What can the
Government do? There are so many good examples, and we have heard
of many of them this morning, such as the Ashton Hayes project.
There are other projects. For instance, in Woking—and I
am sure members have already heard about this—they have
been incredibly successful in reducing their energy consumption,
by decentralising house supplies. It seems to me that we have
all these wonderful things happening; it is just a great shame
not to learn, to use these as exemplars, to follow their experiences
and what they have learnt. Many people do know how to save energy.
Earlier, Patrick Hall spoke of making people aware. There are
many good organisations like the Energy Saving Trust, but so many
people do not know about their existence. CRed themselves have
websites to tell people what they can do—and they are not
enormous things. We are not all going to have to stop driving
or go to live, as people have said, in mud huts. There are small
but efficient changes that we can make which will make a difference.
The biggest thing is to make being green affordable. Things like
energy-efficient light bulbs are more expensive and, even though
you know that they will save you money in the long term, it is
the initial outlay that people find expensive. For example, it
is £7.95 to buy an LED spotlight; on the other hand, you
can buy a pack of three for £3.99. So the choice is not that
difficult for people on a limited budget. What will they spend:
£3.99 for three or £7.95 for the one bulb? I know that
it will work down to an economy of scale eventually but, at the
moment it is still an expensive option to be green. The same applies
to being green within your home. Condensing boilers and ground
source heat pumps are at least two to three times more expensive
than conventional boilers. It is exactly the same thing with solar
panels and PV cells. I would love to install all these things
but I know that to put in, say, a ground source heat pump will
cost me anything between £9,000 and £15,000, as opposed
to £2,000 or £3,000 for a normal boiler. Marks &
Spencer and Stuart Rose are to be very much applauded for their
declaration last week about becoming carbon neutral and going
into sustainable sourcing. I just feel that it has been a long
time coming. We have all known that these things needed to be
done; it is only now being done, and they are aiming to do it
by 2010, I believe. All the supermarkets should now be encouraged
by government to follow this pattern set by M&S.
Q686 Chairman: Can I be very rude
and interrupt you.
Ms James: I talk too much.
Q687 Chairman: I would never say
that to a lady who is in full flow. It could be very dangerous!
The one thing that we are limited on, however, is time; but I
think that we have a clear message regarding your practical suggestions,
and some of the issues may come up in questioning. Forgive me
for having to cut you off in your prime, but can we move on to
Glen Buckingham who is a farm manager, whose own home life encourages
him to use energy-efficient power and who is involved with the
parish council and a parish plan covering this particular subject.
He is a member of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.
Mr Buckingham: We have talked
about this legislation issue. I believe the message should be
that we do not actually know how much carbon we are consuming.
One of the pieces I included in my statement was that perhaps
we could know from our electricity bill or our petrol receipt
that, "By the time you have consumed this energy you have
emitted x kilos of carbon". We have the technology to deliver
Club Card points, loyalty points, Nectar points, and all these
other things, but it is very important for us to know how many
kilos of carbon we are consuming as individuals, and we could
therefore move on individually to make more sense of it when we
use a carbon calculator to work out our allowance, if you like.
People can then work towards cutting their emissions, because
they will easily know how much they have created. Regarding my
work as a farm manager, we have moved to a low till-type system
on the farm, where we no longer plough the land; we do not invert
the soil; we try to reduce the carbon emission from soil breakdown
and protect the soil as a resource. It also means that, for the
last two years, we have got down to allowing 58 litres of fuel
used per hectare to run the whole arable enterprise; that is five
gallons an acre in "old money". It is 105 tonnes of
carbon emissions for the farm, just in fuel. As I have put in
my statement, we produce around 6,500 tonnes of carbon-rich product,
but it costs us 1,500 tonnes of carbon to do that. If everyone
could look at what they do and assess their carbon account, people
would start to look at how to be efficient; they would see how
it is possible to improve their performance. I have been a member,
as you have said, of both Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth
for a very long time and have followed the issues—which
they raised a long time ago, as you are aware. I will leave it
at that.
Q688 Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed. We move now to Reverend David Hares, who has the shortest
description of all—a domestic householder.
Reverend Hares: When we married
35 years ago, we found a lovely rose growing in a wild garden
in North Creake. My wife, who is a keen gardener, plucked it up.
Every year, we have stood in front of this rose on our wedding
anniversary. Initially, in the pictures you can see a rose in
glorious full bloom. As we have lugged this rose round the country,
we now find that when we get to our wedding anniversary the bloom
has passed a month hence. That is a small example of how evident
it is that there is a significant change occurring, and that sort
of illustration may be helpful. We retired two years ago to Norwich
and live in the city centre. It has been our experience in two
years that we have been able, as it were, to haul round a Victorian
terraced house, so that ecological living has clearly chimed in
with definite economic benefits to us. Selling global warming
as an issue, we need very much to focus not only on people's goodwill
but also very definitely, alas, on our self-interest. The further
point I would want to make regarding how we live is that I think
town and city life, where so many of us live in high concentrations—and
someone spoke about how do we tackle the cities as against affluent
villages—offers a better ecological prospect than the sprawling
suburbs, which require people continually to use their cars. If
we are to sell city life as being an advantageous and attractive
option for people, then we need to do more quite specifically
to make our city centres safe areas which have good public transport,
which are plainly clean and free from litter. If the city is grubby,
then it puts everybody off; they flee to the suburbs as soon as
they can. Norwich, we are told, is "A Fine City". We
are seeking to do more, but there is more to be done. Thirdly,
regarding low carbon alternatives to traditional domestic energy
sources, in our home we were very pleased to install roof insulation
with the help of a grant. The payback for that, we are told—and
we believe it to be true—is something like four years. However,
other really valuable installations like a solar exchange unit
for our domestic hot water, costing £3,500, has had to go
right off the entire project, even though the carbon saving equivalent
would be around half that of running a small car for 10,000 miles
a year. That is an immense carbon saving, but the cost is still
there. If we wish to see this go forward, I believe that we need
substantial and consistently applied government grants to make
this possible and also to kick-start economies of scale. My penultimate
point is that, as a domestic user of water, a huge obstacle to
domestic goodwill—not only for me but for a lot of people—is
that our being encouraged to use water meters is not something
we are particularly drawn to, when such a large percentage is
allowed to be wasted through leakages before it ever reaches our
home. It is a catastrophic public relations thing for this to
be still true, and we need to deal with it soon. Finally—and
I realise that one is dealing with people who have a keen ear
for the possible, quite properly—what we also need to do
is to face up to our domestic use of the car. To help my pocket
and to reduce our collective carbon footprint, I quite often—even
though I am a keen motorist—drive below the present speed
limits. The Committee will know that in Norway they drive at 50
mph on the open road and 55 mph on motorways, which is of course
the best efficient speed for a car. Until we have a clean fuel,
to adopt this approach as a national enterprise would bring immediate
environmental benefits. I really do understand the psychological
baggage that driving brings with it for us, and therefore it would
not be an easy thing to do; but I sense that a lower national
speed limit—a small actual sacrifice which would bring benefits
of safety, environment, and all the rest of it—would be
a litmus test of how serious we are, as a nation of domestic householders,
about global warming.
Q689 Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed. That was very succinctly put. Finally, Helen Deavin, who
is a project manager with the Royal Society for the Protection
of Birds, based at their Eastern England regional office. You
have worked on aspects of the impact of climate change on sea
levels, the impact on wildlife, particularly in the east of England.
The RSPB is an old friend of the Committee and has often given
us good advice; so we look forward to your contribution.
Ms Deavin: One thing I should
mention is that I am here very much as an individual and what
I am saying today represents my views. As you have said, I work
for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. I have a longstanding
interest in wildlife and the environment, and my job involves
me in work where the impacts of climate change on our environment
are becoming all too obvious; particularly through rising sea
levels and increased storminess around the coast. Because of this,
I am keen to do as much as possible as an individual to reduce
my carbon footprint and have been taking action at home to make
this happen. Like many people with an interest in climate issues,
I have done the obvious things, like replacing light bulbs with
low-energy light bulbs and getting improved insulation for my
home. I buy energy from a green electricity supplier and I am
saving up to install double glazing. I am careful about how I
travel, cycling or walking to work; although I have to confess
that in the winter I too, for reasons of safety, tend to walk
rather than cycle. I am trying to minimise flying and car use
where I can. I feel that I would like to go further to reduce
my own carbon footprint, to something that it will need to be
for all of us if we are to avoid dangerous climate change. I understand
that the average emissions of an individual are something like
10 tonnes per year, as Belinda was saying earlier, and they need
to be closer to two tonnes. That sounds like a very big jump and
one which will take more than the obvious actions to achieve.
One way in which I would like to contribute to this, therefore,
would be through generating some of my own power through renewable
sources, at or close to my home. However, like many others, I
have found that this is no easy task. The grant systems available
for installing micro-renewable technologies like solar voltaic
panels, mini wind turbines and ground source heat pumps, are difficult
to understand and often do not cover enough of the cost of the
technology for them to be readily accessible to ordinary people.
Last year saw a cut in grants for solar energy and, because of
my job, I know that this resulted in the RSPB scrapping its own
solar scheme because it was no longer considered viable by the
partner company. Alongside this, it is very hard for ordinary
householders to get sensible, trustworthy advice about which technologies
will work for them, how long the payback time is, and where to
go for the installation. It is good that micro-renewable energies
are now starting to enter the mainstream but, without more help
from government to allow individuals to make the most of the technologies,
it is unlikely that they will ever play their full part in tackling
climate change. I know that I would like to do as much as possible,
and I am one of the willing ones. So if I am finding it hard to
navigate through the current system, what hope is there for people
who are not already climate-aware? The Government's aspirations
for zero-carbon housing are great, and may even be achieved in
new houses with the right political will. However, for the vast
majority of us who continue to live in houses built before this
initiative, more action is needed to help us help the country
go green.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
Daniel?
Q690 Daniel Kawczynski: First of
all, a very quick observation to Reverend Hares. You and I are
in the great minority because we drive at the national speed limit
on motorways, or below. I never drive at over 70 mph on a motorway,
but the trouble is that everybody overtakes us. We are in the
slow lane and even large lorries overtake us. Nobody adheres to
the national speed limit, regrettably. You say that we should
lower it but, if we lower it, under current legislation even fewer
people will follow it. My question is to Ms James. You made a
very powerful case for dealing with climate change and the impact
on generations to come. That contrasts very much with comments
made by Jeremy Clarkson, who said that climate change is great
because it will mean that in England we will have a climate like
the Mediterranean and we will be able to grow olives in our back
gardens—which I think is very irresponsible. What I would
put to you is this. As you will know, the United Kingdom produces
only two% of global emissions. The real perpetrators are China
and the United States. The standard reply to this question is,
"Well, of course, if we don't take a lead they won't follow".
Is there anything else on that? Do you really think that China
will only take action if we show that we are doing it ourselves?
Ms James: I think it has already
been shown that China is taking the matter seriously, although
they have sufficient coal reserves, as I understand it, to last
them well into the next century. This is related to CRed, because
CRed designed a biomass power station which would have supplied
enough power for the whole of the inner city of Norwich. Unfortunately,
the local government, or whoever, decided not to take this up;
but Shanghai has taken it up and CRed are now actively working
with the local government in Shanghai, to get this biomass power
station up and running. Okay, they know that it will only provide
a tiny amount, but the fact is that they have seized upon this
new technology and are embracing it, and hopefully it will be
just one of many. Also, I believe that the cars they have in China
already run far more efficiently than ours do here, or indeed
in America. They have legislated that the emissions have to be
much lower. So they are already doing their bit—though I
may be wrong on that.
Q691 David Lepper: Reverend Hares,
I am in an even smaller minority than you and Daniel. I have got
this far having never learnt to drive, partly because of having
always lived in a city. I think that what you have said about
the positives of city life is very important. All four of you
are before us, in part at least, as householders. Under the Energy
Efficiency Commitment, the utility companies have a responsibility
to encourage householders to be more energy-efficient. Some of
you have talked about the frustrations you have found in getting
advice and information. Is there any one of you—and you
can all join in if you want to—who has any particular views
about how well your own energy suppliers in gas and electricity
are carrying out that role of encouraging you to be energy-efficient?
Mr Buckingham: Certainly we have
had offers of light bulbs—that sort of thing—and leaflets
through the post about insulation, et cetera. No one goes as far
as microgeneration, because I guess that would be against the
company principle probably. However, they do buy it back, et cetera.
Ms James: I buy my power initially
through Greenpeace. They have got NPower to produce a renewable
energy source called `Juice'. At the time we said, "How much
more are we prepared to pay for this renewable energy source?"
and, interestingly, it is currently cheaper than the other rates.
They produce things like the booklet I have here, which is a guide
to running costs. Although it may be obvious to some people, I
was really quite shocked reading it and thinking, "Gosh!
Is that really how much energy my tumble-dryer uses?". It
is this whole thing of making people aware of how much the appliances
within their homes actually use. If they were aware and costed
it out, I think that would encourage people to save a bit more
money.
Q692 Chairman: Are there any other
contributions to that question before I move on?
Reverend Hares: I was wondering
if I might be able to reply to Daniel.
Q693 Chairman: Very briefly.
Reverend Hares: If we are not
messing about on this and are truly serious about the impact of
carbon emissions, then to reduce carbon emissions would be relatively
easily, providing there is the will to do so, through people driving
at the present speed limits—and I would advocate the Norwegian
standard—we would indeed press for it.
Mr Drew: It is good to have some real
citizens with us.
Chairman: Of course Mr Drew is an unreal
citizen!
Q694 Mr Drew: I think that you have
probably all read the recent story that the Number 10 website
has had over a million hits from people opposing road pricing.
It may well be that road pricing is not a very good way to persuade
people to get out of their cars, but we have four very worthy
people in front of us, against a million people who signed up
to the statement that this was something they were not prepared
to do. How do we engage with citizenship, in the sense that people
have to change their mindset? It is very easy to find the reasons
not to do something but incredibly difficult to persuade people
that this is the issue of our times. Suggestions, please.
Ms Deavin: One of the things I
would say is to make it easy in terms of time. When I was looking
into different options for renewable energies, it took a great
amount of time to try to work out what would or would not be possible—all
that kind of thing. Perhaps to have somewhere where all of the
information is presented in one place, where it is clear, simple
and straightforward. Especially if people are not particularly
committed in the first place, if they have to spend a huge amount
of time filling in forms and all of that kind of thing, it is
one of the things that can be a big turn-off for people in terms
of getting involved.
Mr Buckingham: With regard to
road pricing, I think that congestion charging is the beginnings
of that. The issue there is that a traffic queue is nought miles
per gallon and maximum carbon emissions. It is therefore a way
of moving away from high carbon emission problems. I would imagine
that, in time, we could see variable charging in the rural areas,
where you may perceive that it needs to be cheaper because greater
distances have to be travelled to get to a service or whatever;
whereas in town or on motorways there may be a higher charge.
What we have to do first of all, however, is say, "Is that
journey carbon-necessary?"—which is probably where
you start to look at it. Hence, people need to be aware of their
carbon emissions from every fuel tank full of petrol, or diesel,
or unit of electricity used—whatever it might be—so
that they can put it in perspective, towards the nine billion
tonnes of carbon that is emitted around the world and in terms
of how many billion tonnes there are in this country, et cetera.
Then you apply it to your aircraft flight and decide, if figures
are stated as so many tonnes per person, are you within them or
are you not? As you discussed earlier, the legislation could be
difficult to engage with in the near future. If the issue becomes
very serious, however, one would expect government to take the
leadership in time to deal with it in a proper way.
Ms James: If one million people
have hit your website in opposition, hopefully there are 59 million
people out there who are not opposed to road pricing.
Q695 Chairman: There speaks a businesswoman!
Turn the statistics round and it is a win.
Reverend Hares: Regarding road
pricing, it seems to me that if you drive people away from what
is actually the most efficient way of moving around London, namely
the M25, you will raise your carbon emissions. Someone was talking
earlier about the importance of simplicity. The simplest way to
deal with it is that, if you followed an enforced speed limit
around the M25, as you have for example around the Heathrow area
of it—and if you are really serious about enforcing it,
it can be done—you do indeed have the ecological and emissions
gains, as well as people getting to their destinations quickly
because you process more cars.
Q696 Patrick Hall: I was interested
in Belinda James's observation that, in her view, carbon offsetting—planting
trees, I think she said, although not necessarily being against
planting trees—was not the answer, in that it did not address
behaviour. In fact, the behaviour can carry on in the same way
and you think that you have bought your way out of it. I am therefore
beginning to indicate that I am sympathetic with you. Defra is
signed up to such a scheme and I think that this Committee, when
it travels around, is also part of this Defra offsetting. I would
like to ask everyone on the panel to comment briefly on whether
or not they think that carbon offsetting has a role to play.
Mr Buckingham: Yes, I think that
if we look at high levels of carbon consumption, then there ought
to be some charge which goes with that—to curb excess emissions.
In my statement, for instance, I suggest that air passenger traffic
should carry a compulsory carbon offset charge; but that funding
should be used properly. I am not sure that it is necessarily
trees, which take several years to consume the carbon. That money
should be directed at systems and spent by councils or authorities
to improve energy efficiency in schools or hospitals. It might
only be in the form of an energy conservation officer, not necessarily
equipment, because there are a lot of things to be pointed out
and lessons to be learnt.
Ms Deavin: I looked into it for
my own use, for a holiday flight—which was very disgraceful
of me! I looked into it to see whether it was something that I
could do. When I looked at some of the companies out there and
the schemes they presented, I was not very convinced by what was
shown. I was quite pleased to hear recently that there will be
more regulation, in terms of what the carbon offsetting companies
are providing and what the links are back to the individual householder
or the person wanting to make a difference. When I looked at it,
there was a scheme for some sort of hydro power in Poland, but
it gave literally one or two lines of information about the scheme.
From my point of view, I wanted to be convinced that it would
really make a difference if I were to pay extra.
Q697 Chairman: A lot of the schemes
are outwith the United Kingdom, and yet we have had some pretty
convincing evidence this morning about the value of concerted
community action. From a personal standpoint, would you prefer
to see some of that money going to an initiative locally, where
you could see how it was spent?
Ms Deavin: I think that there
would be more of an incentive to do so, yes.
Q698 Chairman: Reverend Hares, do
you want to come in on this one?
Reverend Hares: I find myself
very drawn to this. Rather than "offsetting", I would
call it "trading". I think that introduces a slightly
different feel to it all.
Q699 Lynne Jones: On this idea of
having labels of the carbon consumption, what would make people
look at it? If you went to fill up, you would just look at the
price; you would not actually look at the carbon figure. Perhaps
one idea might be to have carbon warnings, much as you have with
tobacco health warnings, which would be really prominent and would
draw people's attention to it. Is that an idea that you would
support?
Mr Buckingham: Yes. When the parish
plan in our village, or the group of people who did that, looked
at the environment and transport questions, there appeared to
be an awareness of climate change but not an awareness of how
everybody is implicated in it. Everyone talks about carbon and
it is all in the newspapers about "carbon this" and
"carbon that". Yes, there are some calculators around;
but it is getting direct information about your carbon consumption,
so that when you buy 50 litres of fuel, you multiply it by 2.3
for petrol and get 100-plus kilos of carbon. Then education starts
to make people aware of, "Crikey! We've used 200 kilos this
month. I am supposed to have only five tonnes a year. My car consumes
this". Perhaps at the annual MOT for a car that is more than
three years old, when the mileage is taken nowadays the statistics
could be compared with the average consumption for that vehicle,
and then people are told, "Actually, that car has done 10,000
miles and that means it is x kilos. Do you realise that?".
It is about education. I think that education and empowerment
to the people come first; legislation comes later. Legislation
may have to apply to the very heavy consumers, or a tax may have
to apply to the very heavy consumers, and that money used wisely
to offset the carbon.
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