The ‘praise’ was from a Committee of MPs – the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change. Last week they published a report into ‘Consumption-Based Emissions Reporting’, complimenting the Lake District, West Sussex and Manchester for their efforts in managing climate change at a local level.

I’ve been working with the Lake District to help it establish the first local ‘carbon budget’, introduced a couple of years ago. Like a financial budget, the aim is to find out how much carbon the Lake District is responsible for, and then reduce the carbon ‘spend’ year on year. Using this approach, and working with local businesses and communities, 14000 tonnes of carbon have been saved – often resulting in financial savings, too, from reduced energy bills, for example.

The budget, using a method developed by Small World Consulting, uses a consumption-based approach. In other words, it counts all the greenhouse gas emissions caused by consumption within the National Park – including food and drink, manufactured products, buildings and travel.

The consumption approach is significant, because it produces a much more rounded picture of emissions than the usual, production-based approach. If UK national emissions are measured this way, our carbon use is actually rising, not falling, due to the carbon ‘embedded’ in imports of goods manufactured overseas, as their report explains.

We’ve found another advantage of this approach. Putting together a comprehensive map of emissions helps to engage local businesses and communities. It’s a simple, meaningful way of explaining where the carbon comes from. We can tell hotels and guesthouses, for example, that serving local, seasonal food and drink is good for carbon as well as business. One village pub has taken the work a stage further, offering drinkers a carbon analysis of their pint, and pointing out that the microbrewery down the road is by far the most efficient beer.

We’ve been really pleased to see how the budget has been taken up and used, by local organisations as well as by those further afield. Since we began our work, other local areas including Manchester and West Sussex have followed suit, and there’s a lot of local media interest too, like this article from the local paper – and, of course, that billboard.

There’s lots of background and detail on our carbon budget here.

For more on the consumption-based approach, see the Committee’s report, and a useful blog by Warren Hatter, explaining its significance for local areas.

For anyone working with government to develop better environmental policy, the difficulty of getting companies to lobby alongside you is a constant problem. There are convincing arguments that strong legislation can help, or at the very least not hinder, economic performance (this is something I wrote about a few years ago). Yet, with some honourable exceptions, companies are rarely willing to put their heads above the parapet and lobby for change.

Back in 2003, Green Alliance tackled this issue head-on, in a pamphlet called ‘The Private Life of Public Affairs’. It details examples of deeply unhelpful corporate lobbying, and sets out a way for governments to develop more constructive policy relationships with the corporate sector. Have a little read of that and see if things have got any better in the intervening eight years…

This report, commissioned by Co-operatives UK and The Co-operative Group, offers insights from visits to five co-operatively owned energy projects. In early 2012 we will be publishing a set of policy recommendations to government, based on our findings.

Click here to download a copy

Click here for more about the project

A Green Alliance pamphlet, co-authored with Nick Eyre, of the UK Energy Research Centre.

This pamphlet, written for Green Alliance and co-authored with Nick Eyre, of the UK Energy Research Centre, argues that energy policy needs to be refocussed around demand, rather than supply.

From the moment that our ancestors first discovered fire, energy use has been closely linked to progress. Agriculture is basically a way of diverting solar energy into useful crops – and farming liberated people from the daily hunt for sustenance, allowing modern societies to flourish. And, of course, the industrial revolution was essentially an energy revolution: exploiting fossil fuels to change radically the way that we live, work and even eat. We now each use fifteen times the amount of energy that we did before the industrial age.

Until now, energy use and social progress have been inextricably linked. But now, for the first time in history, it makes sense to use less energy, not more. Climate change, diminishing oil supplies and worried over energy security mean that we can no longer rely on more energy to drive more progress.

Yet politics has yet to catch up with this new reality. Our energy politics is overwhelmingly dominated by the supply side. We still assume that we can simply substitute high-carbon energy for low-carbon energy, chuck in a bit of energy efficiency, and carry on as we are. Politicians have yet to grapple with the fundamental question: how to break the habit of generations, and use less energy, not more.

Nick and I use the pamphlet to ask what would happen if we got serious about energy demand. We argue that a new approach to energy politics would open up new solutions, in transport, land-use planning and food, for example – that would help us build a more resilient economy and society.

Download the pamphlet here, read it online on Green Alliance’s website, or look at this Guardian article which sets out a very short version of the argument.

But it’s far from easy to make an energy co-op happen, and they are still the exception, not the rule. The market for large-scale, commercial renewables is well established. At the other end of the scale, it is now relatively easy for individuals with a bit of money saved to invest in energy generation, thanks to the feed-in tariff. But the community level is still problematic. Communities face tricky legal and financial hurdles, as well as the challenges of working together as a group of people, often volunteers.

For this work, commissioned by Co-operatives UK and The Co-operative Group, we visited to five co-operatively owned energy projects during the summer of 2011, and talked to lots more co-operatives and energy experts about how this sector could be further developed and supported. This report offers insights from the process; in early 2012 we will be publishing a set of policy recommendations to government, based on our findings.

Download a copy of the report:

Co-operative renewable energy: A guide to this growing sector

A political think piece for Green Alliance, arguing that energy politics should be refocussed around demand, not supply

Read my opinion piece in the Guardian, summarising the argument

Click here to read online

Click here to download

I wanted to write the pamphlet because it’s always struck me as strange that energy – and energy demand in particular – receives so little political attention. From the moment that our ancestors first discovered fire, energy use has been closely linked to progress. Agriculture is basically a way of diverting solar energy into useful crops – and farming liberated people from the daily hunt for sustenance, allowing modern societies to flourish. And, of course, the industrial revolution was essentially an energy revolution: exploiting fossil fuels to change radically the way that we live, work and even eat. We now each use fifteen times the amount of energy that we did before the industrial age.

Until now, energy use and social progress have been inextricably linked. But now, for the first time in history, it makes sense to use less energy, not more. Climate change, diminishing oil supplies and worried over energy security mean that we can no longer rely on more energy to drive more progress.

Yet politics has yet to catch up with this new reality. Our energy politics is overwhelmingly dominated by the supply side. We still assume that we can simply substitute high-carbon energy for low-carbon energy, chuck in a bit of energy efficiency, and carry on as we are. Politicians have yet to grapple with the fundamental question: how to break the habit of generations, and use less energy, not more.

Nick and I use the pamphlet to ask what would happen if we got serious about energy demand. We argue that a new approach to energy politics would open up new solutions, in transport, land-use planning and food, for example – that would help us build a more resilient economy and society.

Have a look at the pamphlet (you can download it here, read it online on Green Alliance’s website, or look at my Guardian article which sets out a very short version of the argument) and let me know what you think – on Twitter at @bankfieldbecky or by email to hello@rebeccawillis.co.uk .

Lots has been written about how problematic this decision is. How it creates conditions of chronic uncertainty for fledgling renewables businesses. How many of the 25000 people employed in the industry may now be facing redundancy. How its impacts will be felt most strongly by housing associations and community groups. How it may even be illegal, given that the ‘consultation’ on the proposals ends on 23 December, yet the cuts come into force two weeks before that.

But the biggest issue for me is the weaselly argument that the current FIT rates constitute an unjustifiable and costly subsidy to solar power, and that, as George Osborne asserted in his party conference speech last month, “a decade of environmental laws and regulations are piling costs on the energy bills of households and companies”.

The idea that renewables benefit from unjustifiable levels of subsidy compared to other industries is laughable.

Take DECC itself. Despite Greg Barker’s assertions that “there is no subsidy for nuclear power”, a quick glance at this brilliant infographic from The Guardian shows that nearly £7 billion of DECC’s total budget of £8 billion goes on the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency. You can split hairs about whether this counts as a subsidy for new build nuclear or not, but the fact remains, it’s public money helping a private industry.

Countless studies have shown that globally, subsidies for fossil fuels outstrip those for renewables by considerable amounts. This US study shows that 70% of federal energy incentives go to fossil fuels, with 10% going to nuclear. A report out next week by the International Energy Agency will show that subsidies to fossil fuels are increasing, not decreasing, and far outweigh any subsidies for renewables.

And what about road transport, which is responsible for around a fifth of all the carbon emitted in the UK? It is propped up by no end of public money: road building and maintenance, policing, not to mention the cost to the NHS of 25000 serious injuries from accidents every year. And all this spending is regressive – this brilliant bit of analysis shows that every public pound spent on car travel is a transfer of resources from poor to rich.

I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t worry about the amount of public money (or money taken from energy bills) that is spent on renewables. Of course we should ask questions about how best to use scarce resources. We shouldn’t forget that the cheapest way to save carbon is not to use energy in the first place – through greater efficiency and demand reduction.
But if the government is going to claim unfair subsidy for solar, it also needs to take a long hard look at how its money still props up the unsustainable industries of the past.

To help MPs lead this vital agenda at national and constituency level, Green Alliance and Ashridge Business School have established a Climate Leadership Programme.

This is a unique partnership designed to help MPs develop the knowledge, networks and understanding to take positive action on climate change during a time of economic uncertainty and financial austerity. It aims to:

• Allow politicians to strengthen their understanding of the science, policy and politics of climate change;
• Help each party to develop a committed new cohort of MPs who will lead the way;
• Enable politicians to develop strong networks with thought leaders, practitioners and influential institutions who can help them make a real difference on this crucial agenda.

Following a successful pilot phase with prospective parliamentary candidates before the election, our Climate Leadership Programme has a number of elements:

• Short intensive workshop sessions for small groups of new MPs from each party;
• Formal events such as a private dinner with Fellows of the Royal Society;
• A short briefing on the science of climate change;
• On-going tailored support, informal advice and collaborative working.

In November 2010 we held two afternoon workshops with input from leading practitioners, scientists and policy experts. Greg Barker MP, Minister of State for Climate Change, joined Conservative MPs for a dinner discussion focussing on the politics and political opportunities offered by this agenda. Liberal Democrats were joined by Rt Hon Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

In March 2011 we held a similar session with Labour MPs, in which Meg Hillier MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and Luciana Berger MP, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, joined the MPs for a dinner discussion. Read more about all three sessions here.