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How do we fight climate change? - for The Inverness Courier
THE news that Richard Branson has decided to put $3 billion over the next 10 years into research into climate change highlights once again the need for urgent action to tackle global warming.
But while there is now consensus - and growing public concern - about the scale of the problem, finding the right solutions is still a matter of political debate and painfully slow international discussion.
In his powerful speech to the Liberal Democrat Conference in Brighton last week, my Highland colleague Charles Kennedy highlighted the latest research from the British Antarctic Survey.
By deep drilling into the ice, they have been able to study changes in the world's climate over the past 800,000 years.
They found that the acceleration in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over recent decades is the greatest over that entire period. If we do not take action now, the consequences will be unthinkable for future generations. As well as being a practical matter, this is one of the great moral issues of our time.
But while Richard Branson's decision may be based on business logic, the question of what action we should take remains. This is a global problem, which requires global solutions - attention in particular is focussed on the largest polluter, the United States, and the rapidly-rising energy consumption of China and India. Every country - and indeed every individual - has a role to play.
Much of the debate locally has focussed on efforts to shift the production of energy away from fossil fuels towards renewables. I would like to see much more emphasis on exploiting the enormous energy generating potential of the sea, through wave and tidal power. With the right level of urgency, Scotland - and the Highlands in particular - can lead the world in this sector, creating jobs as well as clean power. It was good to see Nicol Stephen announcing further Scottish Executive measures to boost this sector this week and the UK government needs to follow suit.
Electricity generation only accounts for part of our greenhouse gas emissions. Transport - and especially car use - is another major contributor. But any action needs to reflect the realities in rural areas like the Highlands and Islands, as well as the environmental imperatives. That was the approach taken in the radical tax reform proposals agreed at the Lib Dem conference this week.
I have argued strongly in Parliament that fuel duty should be reduced in rural areas to create a level playing field for those us who have to drive long distances with few or no public transport alternatives. Only the Treasury benefits from higher prices - so it is time to end Gordon Brown's Highland highway robbery.
So if the right thing to do is to reduce fuel tax for drivers in the Highlands, is there anything else we can do to reduce emissions from our cars in this part of the world?
At the conference, we proposed increasing road tax on the most polluting new cars to give a financial incentive to choose a more efficient vehicle.
This would only apply to new cars, and we would apply a 50 per cent discount for rural areas such as the Highlands.
Such a change would also add to the pressure on car companies to develop more fuel efficient vehicles. Not only does a more efficient car use less fuel, we would like to see it pay significantly less tax.
The amount of money raised by environmental taxes has actually fallen significantly over the last five years. Returning the take from green taxes to the 1999 level would release significant new resources to reduce tax elsewhere - and tackle poverty?
By raising the level of income below which no tax is paid, two million of the lowest income families would stop paying tax altogether. Cutting the basic rate of tax by 2p and raising the level above which the higher rate of tax is paid would help hard-pressed low and middle income families.
Far, far too many people in this country still live in poverty and inequality has risen significantly under Tony Blair.
People working for the minimum wage are still paying sums to the state - the combined effect with the benefit system can mean paying the equivalent of 90 per cent tax rates.
Incomes in the Highlands are still lower than the national average, so measures to help people on lower incomes would be disproportionately beneficial here. It must be right to make much more use of the tax system to discourage damaging activities - such as pollution - and encourage work to help people out of poverty.
This is a debate that will no doubt go on - but I hope these ideas will raise people's horizons about what can be achieved.
Posted on: 26/09/2006
