David Cameron put climate change at the heart of his campaign to transform and modernise the Conservative Party. I don’t doubt his personal commitment or that of many other Ministers and MPs. However the same cannot be said for the entire Conservative Parliamentary Party, with a significant number of climate change sceptics on both front and backbenches.
 
Not long before the General Election, TimMontgomerie, a former CCHQ staffer and editor of the influential website Conservative Home, suggested that “80-90 per cent” of my party are “just not signed up” to the climate change agenda. His comments were backed up by a poll of Conservative candidates in the 250 most winnable seats conducted through his website before the election. Candidates were asked to rank 19 different policy priorities in order of importance. Britain’s carbon footprint came bottom.
 
It may sometimes be effective to shift the focus of the argument. Those who are sceptical about climate change and the need to cut GHG emissions may still accept theoverriding need for more investment in energy efficiency, thedesirability of new nuclear power stations and even of some forms of renewable energy because both help to cut our dependence on imported oil and gas. The dangers of being vulnerable to the whims of volatile foreign regimes that may not always be friendly unites climate change sceptics and enthusiastic greens alike.
 
We must persuade the public that it is in Britain’s economic interests to move to a low carbon economy faster than other countries, not least to give us a competitive edge. This will not be easy, but if the carbon price rises substantially as the world economy recovers and other nations get tougher with emitters, then we will have a very significant advantage if we have already invested in low carbon electricity generating capacity, low emission transport infrastructure and environmentally-friendly buildings.
Low carbon products and services will be a growth market in the medium to long term, as trends in the car industry already show.
 
Now is the time to invest in research and development of the products and services that will be in demand as the low carbon revolution takes place. Clean coal in particular offers immense international potential, and the Government should continue to prioritise the demonstration of carbon capture and storage.
 
The EU has a role to play in the big picture. If aligned with either China or India, it would easily outweigh America on the global stage. Imagine a common EU/China or EU/India standard for electricity generation or for buildings. The rest of the world would have to pay attention. Of course the EU’s approach to these issues may at present be poles apart from both China and India, but it must be worth at least exploring the possible benefits of bilateral agreements with those countries even if initially such agreements were only voluntary.
 
David Cameron is inheriting a far more difficult and complex situation than anyone foresaw. When that iconic photograph was taken of him dog sledding in Norway, en route to view the retreating icebergs, nobody had any idea of the looming global financial meltdown. His green enthusiasm in the early days of his leadership proved how the Conservatives had changed but those were very different times.
 
Nonetheless there is no going back now. One measure by which his Government will be judged is whether it accelerates the transformation of Britain to a low carbon economy.

Posted by Administrator on behalf of Tim Yeo MP. Tim is MP for South Suffolk, and chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee.

The full pamphlet, Green Gold, can be downloaded from the Tory Reform Group

Different? Please?

William Hague via Twitter (but in the Queen’s Speech debate) announced today that the UK would for the first time be making public the maximum number of nuclear warheads it holds.

On the one hand, hurrah for openness and leading by example. And yes it’s good that the announcement will presumably be made to the House of Commons first, before it’s made anywhere else (have they learnt the lesson of leaking the Queen’s Speech?).

On the other, though, announcing that you’re going to be announcing something is not really what I expect from the new politics.

Let’s not have five years of pre-re-post announcements. Let’s just get on with it.

In one fell swoop of a press release on Thursday afternoon, this Government has abandoned all pretence it has to a human rights legacy.

In what appears to be a rushed move to secure an environmental legacy ahead of the general election, David Miliband announced in a press release entitled ‘New protection for the marine life of the British Indian Ocean Territory’, the creation of a marine protected area (MPA) covering a quarter of a million miles around the Chagos Archipelago which constitutes the British Indian Ocean Territory. The Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory has been instructed to carry out the orders of Mr Miliband. The FCO stated in its press release that the measure is a ‘further demonstration of how the UK takes its international environmental responsibilities seriously’. The unbelievable thing about this mealy mouthed press release is that it fails to even mention the exiled Chagos islanders who have been fighting this government for their right of return.

The Chagos islanders were forcibly evicted in the late 1960s/70s as a result of the decision of the then Labour government which had made a secret deal to lease Diego Garcia to the United States for use as an air base (since famously used as a preferred destination, not for tourism but for rendition). For the islanders a peaceful existence came to an abrupt end as they were forcibly evicted and duped into leaving their homes. This small and brave community has been fighting for its right to return to live in the Chagos islands ever since. After an initial victory against the government in the High Court (subsequently overturned by the government who misused the royal prerogative to do so), they wait for the European Court of Human Rights to rule on their case. As an aside, the Government has seen fit to exempt the BIOT from the applicability of the Human Rights Act, almost unique amongst British overseas territories!

The creation of an MPA which ignores the role that the Chagossians have to play when there were other options on the table which would have preserved the unique marine environment of the Chagos islands whilst allowing for the right to return, is deeply concerning to the islanders. This announcement makes their return almost impossible in practice since one of the principal means of sustenance available to them on return will be fishing. The premature timing of the announcement, with only three sitting days to go before Parliament is dissolved means that it will be impossible to have this issue debated properly and, as the Vice Chair of the Chagos All Party Parliamentary Group, Lord Avebury, has described shows a contempt for Parliament and a total disregard for the interests of the Chagossian people whom Parliament and the Government is morally obliged to offend.

I can’t think what the Chagos Islanders have done to deserve this treatment but they are deeply saddened and disappointed at yet another blow. Knowing the community as I do, I am sure that this proud people who have lived through so much will fight on.

Millions of miles away, tapping on a computer in the South East, why do I care you might ask? Why am I indignant? To me this is a David and Goliath struggle for human rights in which Britain’s human rights record has been hugely tarnished. It is a struggle against the injustice, lies and deception of this government and others. The Chagossians are torch bearers for all of us who believe in human rights, these British citizens deserve their right to live in the land of their birth like you or like I. It is a damning indictment of this government that one of its final acts in its dying days was to wave through a measure that unnecessarily commits grave harm to a group of its citizens – well done on your legacy Miliband, let’s hope that the next government can do rather better!

Marcus Booth is Vice Chair of the UK Chagos Support Association, and Chairman of Conservative City Future

Rainforests are not only the ‘green lungs’ of the planet but also the source of the forest resources that directly contribute to the livelihoods of 90 per cent of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty. Emissions from deforestation also account for 17.4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions – this is more than the whole global aviation and transport sector. Without urgent action to halt deforestation, we haven’t a chance of beating global climate change. Like all good climate policy should be, saving our forests is a good thing in itself. There is no magic solution to saving the rainforest but one measure we can take is to choke off demand for illegal timber here in the UK market.

In a speech ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit, my colleague the Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague set out the strength of the Conservatives commitment to tackling deforestation, and in particular to address illegal logging – in order to protect both the world’s rainforests and the rights of indigenous forest people.

William gave a clear commitment that a Conservative government will introduce new legislation to make the sale of illegal timber a criminal offence. We have supported the Government, and remain committed to, strengthening the draft EU Regulation ‘laying down the obligations of operators who place timber and timber products on the market’ but it is clear that action at the European level will only go so far.

In 2008, the United States amended the Lacey Act and made it illegal for a person or company to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire or purchase timber or timber products illegally taken, harvested, possessed, transported, sold or exported. The Lacey Act amendments are widely seen as a historic breakthrough and already leading to changes in practices among US retailers, importers, and manufacturers and logging companies.

There is no reason why this can’t be replicated here in the UK yet the Government has refused to legislate to this effect. If the Government does not act to make the sale of illegal timber a criminal offence, a new Conservative Government will, if we are elected. My Ten Minute Rule Bill is intended to send a message to the rest of Europe that we are ready to lead on closing the market to illegally harvested timber and protecting the extraordinary biodiversity of the rainforest.

Yet again Labour has failed to match its rhetoric with ambitious policy. Conservatives stand ready to make the changes to help save our forests.

George Osborne and William Hague have been in Afghanistan this week; it’s important that potential Chancellors as well as Foreign Secretaries and Prime Ministers understand the implications of their actions (particularly relevant in light of the revelations Geoff Hoon is expected to make this week about Gordon Brown’s treatment of the armed forces).

The general approach that the Tories would take to Afghanistan’s reconstruction – exploiting the dual expertise of the Territorial Army’s personnel in particular – seems to me to be a sensible way forward. One thing that does worry me a little though is the last section of this article:

“Senior military officers have been calling for a stabilisation brigade, having grown frustrated by what they see as the failure of aid agencies to rebuild the economy in Afghanistan.

“In private, they complain that development officials spend too much time and money on civil society initiatives, rather than investing in local infrastructure and jobs.”

I do not believe this can be an either or question. Of course infrastructure and jobs are the only sustainable way for a country that has been ravaged by sanctions, war and deprivation for decades to return to anything approaching normality. I think we’ve seen in Iraq what happens when, for example, electricity supply is still demonstrably worse for most people five years after they were assured they were being rescued from a tyrant. Or if you were an Afghan, your only potential source of income was the Taleban offering you money, wouldn’t you be tempted?

But as we’ve seen in Northern Ireland this week, functioning institutions and a healthy civil society are the things that pose the real threat to those who wish to spread terror. So it is absolutely imperative that, at the same time as the basics of electricity, water, banking, business and general infrastructure, we continue to focus on supporting the development of national institutions. They have to develop with the grain of the nation concerned – it would clearly be ridiculous to expect any country with no history of any sort of democratic activities to be able to instantly run a fully clean election, for example. But part of what makes institutions function properly in favour of those they are supposed to serve is the very fact of practicing. So – for example – the more elections that are held, the more people understand how they are supposed to work and how the contract between voters and elected representatives works.

In Britain, we are hugely fortunate that most of us, most of the time, are able to rely on the institutions that bind our communities together – things like the NHS, the BBC, or even (dare I say it…) the Houses of Parliament and the monarchy. But we’ve had hundreds of years of practice, and of evolution. None of it was perfect when they were first established. They are constantly evolving in accordance with current requirements and expectations.

Melanie Reid’s brilliant article about the way that snow is bringing out our inner Tories is instructive here – in many (most?) cases, there’s an attitude of ‘we just have to make this work ourselves – and we’ll help other people along the way’. Which is exactly how civil society gets stronger and stronger.

Unusual snow across all of Afghanistan is, to be fair, unlikely. But giving up on helping the Afghans to build their own institutions means that they will be unable to realise their potential to do it themselves.