The Thin End

The problem with the UK government’s Net Zero Strategy is that it isn’t backed up by the government’s own actions.  It is a ‘wish’ without a will to act.  We really need bold action, yet we get timid attempts to solve the problem through broken markets.  So, we go on investing in fossil fuels while extolling the virtue of carbon-free energy.  We seek more trade deals that are likely to destroy rainforests and increase the carbon footprints of our daily lives.  Politicians want us to go on behaving as if nothing needs changing.   This is not to say there are no good points in the UK government strategy.  Of course, there are.  But we are so far behind the curve on what needs to be done that half measures and ‘incentives’ are no longer sufficient.   We need a bold strategy to insulate our homes, which requires funding, particularly for older houses. If we do that, then the costs will be returned in energy savings.  This should be rolled ou...

Through the "Heat and Buildings Strategy", the UK government has set out its plan to incentivise people to install low-carbon heating systems in what it calls a simple, fair, and cheap way as they come to replace their old boilers over the coming decade.  New grants of £5,000 will be available from April next year to encourage homeowners to install more efficient, low carbon heating systems – like heat pumps that do not emit carbon when used – through a new £450 million 3-year Boiler Upgrade Scheme. However, it has been widely criticised as inadequate and a strategy without a strategy.  Essentially, it will benefit those who can afford more readily to replace their boiler.   Undoubtedly, the grants will be welcome to those who plan to replace their boilers in the next three years, and it might encourage others to do so, but for too many households, it leaves them between a rock and a hard place.  There are no plans to phase out gas boilers in existing homes.  Ye...

Is the UK government serious about action on climate change? Recent decisions suggest not.   Over one hundred fires have been reported on carbon-rich peatland in Northern England in the last four days despite a new government ban and just weeks before the UK is due to host a major climate summit, COP26. Most of the fires have taken place inside the North York Moors, Peak District and Yorkshire Dales national parks. Wild Moors, the campaign group that collected the data and shared it with Unearthed, has recorded 109 peatland fires as of 10 October, raising questions about the effectiveness of the government ban. Dramatic drone footage captured by Unearthed s hows vast smoke clouds rising from moorland in North Yorkshire. Peatland is the UK’s largest natural carbon store on land, ‘locking in’ an estimated 3.2 billion tonnes, as well as providing nesting and feeding grounds for many wading birds and important habitats for rare insects and plants. Landowners deliberately started Peatla...

Actions, they say, speak louder than words.  So, when we look at the UK government's actions, we can only conclude they don't mean what they say about the environment and climate change.  Despite their claims to be leading the charge on reducing emissions, the UK government is still looking to approve new oil fields.  The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson,  has announced his support for developing the Cambo oil field and 16 other climate-destroying oil projects. Cambo is an oil field in the North Sea, west of Shetland. A company called Siccar Point has applied for a permit to drill at least 170 million barrels of oil there. If it's allowed to go ahead, it will result in the emissions equivalent of 18 coal plants running for a year.  What? Yes, 18 coal plants a year!  Today, as I write, Greenpeace is demonstrating in Downing Street against this project.  I suppose it will get the usual government dismissal and complaints about inconveniencing others.  ...

The bells toll louder now, but will we listen and act?  The UK is hosting the climate summit, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, at the end of October. No doubt it will set new targets or reiterate old ones, but more is needed.  Politicians need to face reality.  We need to set new goals for our economy and the way we live. It will require the most massive investment, probably bigger than the bail-out of the banking system.  If we can bail out the banks, we can save the environment from a cataclysmic global crisis. But governments need to be honest with their citizens.  Trading emissions is no longer an option.  It simply allows the wealthy and rich countries to park their responsibility onto the shoulders of others.  No doubt, the UK will boast about approaching its targets in reducing carbon emissions.  Sadly this is all a sleight of hand.  The UK has, in large part, achieved that by exporting its carbon emissions.  If the U...

Little has come from the Summit at Davos, or at least not much that indicates the major economies are coming together to tackle the pressing issue of our time: climate change.  Political leaders are more interested in promoting growth in world trade than in tackling its environmental consequences.  They are fighting over tariffs, but none of them really wants to restrict world trade.  Yet, that is what needs to be done if they are to stop carbon emissions.  A recent report  for the OECD projected carbon emissions from global freight transport is set to increase four-fold over the next quarter of a century.  This has to be added to the carbon emissions from manufacturing.   This is the carbon footprint of global trade.  Global trade is killing our planet, and there is little prospect of anything being done to stop it. President Trump attacked the 'prophets of doom' and the 'pessimists' over climate change. The child, Greta Thunberg says ...

We need to see the bigger picture. While populist politicians turn inward and argue about migration, the world burns literally.  Instead of erecting barriers, they need to address the causes of migration.  We need international action on climate change.  Climate change is the biggest challenge we face. It is the bigger picture.  When I started The Thin End blog, it was heavily focused on the political aftermath of the financial crash.  In the UK, and elsewhere, politicians made the poorest, and least able bear the brunt of the banking scandal.  The capitalist system could 'no longer afford' to help the poor, to house the homeless and heal the sick!  The stark naked truth of its objective - growth for profit - was revealed. Any growth would do, even if it killed the planet.  A self-destructive growth on which a few grow very, very rich.  Of course, we all benefitted, didn't we?  Growth creates jobs and income we are told.  S...

We are now losing orangutans at a rate of 25 a day as a result of unsustainable palm oil.  Rang-tan represents all of these orangutans whose home, the Indonesian rainforest, has been destroyed for palm oil plantations by big brands like Unilever, Nestle and Mondeléz (who make Cadbury's). The beauty of our planet Earth depends on life, just as life depends on the beauty of our planet.  We humans can appreciate its breathtaking beauty.  We stand in awe of its mountains and rivers; of its great lakes and its rainforests.   We share our photos on social media, as more of this world has become accessible to us. We have the power to destroy, and the power to protect and nurture it. Nature is our treasure.  Perhaps this is because it needs protecting from us.  We have become its biggest threat. Yet, we rarely take the political decisions necessary to protect it.  Utility always seems to prevail.  We need more food to feed a growing population. ...

The UK, we are told, leads the world in tackling climate change. Since 1990 the UK has  cut emissions by more than 40 per cent while growing the economy by more than two-thirds. Unfortunately, this hides a bleaker reality. British Prime Minister, Theresa May boasts that the UK has "the best performance on a per person basis than any other G7 nation."  She may be right, but... Yes, there is a 'but', and it is a very a big 'but'.  The UK hits its targets by exporting its pollution. Exporting environmental pollution The UK reliance on imports is simply exporting our environmental pollution. Our cheap food comes at a great environmental cost.   Our consumption goes on killing the planet. Photo by Elle Dunn In a globalised world, the demand for food is increasingly met by resources outside a given country’s own territory.  Currently, almost a quarter of all food produced for human consumption is traded internationally.  This is good news for t...

The Thin End considers how growth has become a political mantra and how bad trade pollutes the planet and fuels climate change, and the suggestion that there should be carbon taxes. Subscribe to The Thin End Follow @Ray_Noble1

Bad trade and bad products are killing our planet. We have said this before on The Thin End . There is no better example than that of palm oil. It is used ubiquitously in so many products, and its production is a major factor destroying rainforests and threatening precious species. Demand for palm oil is 'skyrocketing worldwide' . It is used in packaging and in so much of our snack foods, cookies, crackers, chocolate products, instant noodles, cereals, and doughnuts, and the list goes on. Bad for the planet So, why is this so bad for the planet? The oil is extracted from the fruit of the oil palms native to Africa. It is now grown primarily in Indonesia and Malaysia, but is also expanding across Central and West Africa and Latin America. Palm oil production is now one of the world's leading causes of rainforest destruction, and this is impacting adversely some of the world's most culturally and biologically diverse ecosystems. Irreplaceable wildlife spec...

With nations entering a new period of protectionist tariffs,  it is time to rethink the regulation of global trade.   Global trade is the driver of climate pollution and climate change. Call for Carbon Charging: In an article in Nature this month, three leading environmental experts have called for carbon charges rather than trade tariffs. With President Trump imposing heavy tariffs on goods from China and the EU, and those countries following with retaliatory barriers, they fail to address the real problem of global trade.  That countries are simply exporting pollution and emissions through imports. The authors point out that with all good intention of the Paris Climate Accord, it is unlikely that the target will be met of keeping warming below the critical 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels.  This would be so even if all countries were to meet their targets set out in their individual action plans. Photo by Elle Dunn Tackling carbon-in...

Could the release of carbon from the soil be accelerating global warming and climate change?  The answer from the latest research published in Nature appears to be a resounding 'yes.'  Perhaps it is not surprising given that the soil acts as a significant store of global carbon.  It isn't merely locked in place. Organic processes release it into the atmosphere.  Carbon is a vital ingredient of our living planet and plays a major role in the balance of our ecosystem. All life on earth is 'made' of carbon and carbon circulates. Carbon enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide from respiration and combustion. It is absorbed by plants to make carbohydrates in photosynthesis using energy from the sun. Animals feed on the plants passing the carbon compounds along the food chain. Most of the carbon they consume is exhaled back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The animals and plants eventually die, and these dead organisms get eaten by decomposers (microbes a...