But at least they can tick the 'target met' box!

According to this from the Telegraph, the cost of the Gov's plans to move us to using more 'green' energy is not exactly going to provide much of a return on investment.

Cost: £57 to £70 Billion
Benefit: £4 to £5 Billion

That doesn't seem to make much sense to me, whether ROI or even enviRoi. No surprise that the numbers were buried deep within the strategy document then.

Hmmmm, I wonder who is footing the bill?

DDAIDDAIS

That's one of Peter's favourite acronyms - 'don't do as I do, do as I say'.

And it is highly applicable here as this from BusinessGreen.com highlights what appears to be yet another rather large ooooops! from our Gov.

The building that houses the Committee on Climate Change and the Department of Energy and Climate Control (hmmmm, I wasn't even aware we had a department for climate control?) has been graded with 'with the lowest possible energy score, which was described as "one of the worst ratings yet recorded"'

"For years, ministers have promised to ensure that all buildings under central government control are within the top quartile of energy performance. At present, qualifying could mean getting as low a rating as a C. Yet the building that houses the Committee on Climate Change has one of the very worst of the G ratings so far recorded."

And it gets worse - 15 Gov. departments are actually less energy efficient now than they were in 2000!

Twas ever thus.

Impacts of the smoking ban

These seem to be rather open to debate and interpretation at the moment, as NHS spokespeople claim it has helped significantly, especially in helping people to quit (though if you look at the numbers, I find it difficult to figure out how they substantiate this claim), whilst other evidence suggests, well, exactly the opposite, especially amongst younger people.

And as our Gov ponders the banning of display advertising for all tobacco products, essentially making them a 'hidden behind the shelf commodity' ('anything for the weekend, sir?'), I will pass on this amusing (well, I found it amusing) little story from our local evening paper the other night. The correspondent wrote that he no longer ever visits any of his local pubs and bars because 'bad body odours' (yes, I know exactly what he means, someone with BO is now extremely noticeable) from other people make it insufferable for him to enjoy a beer any more. He makes the point that smoke at least obscured a lot of what he considers to be far worse smells. (To reinforce the point, when asked why she had stopped going to local nightclubs, my eldest surprisingly opined - 'they just stink of stale sweat, puke, and foul farts now, they're horrible places'. )

The thing is, as almost all teenagers are inately rebellious, putting a ban in place on anything seems almost always to encourage them to go against it anyway, doesn't it? But nanny state knows best. Ho hum.

Zero-carbon homes

These don't appear to be doing too well at the moment according to this from EDIE.

Just 15 new homes that meet the Gov's definition of zero-carbon have been built in the last 12 months, despite the backing of £15 Million of taxpayers money.

Hmmm, perhaps they need to think about redefining just what zero-carbon actually means?

Meanwhile, there are those (see this piece from AlterNet.org) who think that total decarbonisation is the only possible way forward. Sounds rather overtly radical to me, but what do I know?

Yet another Government Website ......

..... on, you've guessed it, climate change.

This new section on DEFRA's website is all about 'Adapting to climate change'.

OK, so what does it tell us? Well, at first glance, it would seem very little that any of the other Gov. developed websites devoted to what they are doing (I couldn't resist a little snigger then) about climate change.

All the links appear to be to existing Gov. website sources already devoted to, errrr, climate change. All the usual suspects, 'Office of climate change', 'Energy savings trust', 'UKCIP', 'ActOnCO2', the new climate change bill etc. But very little new.

I can't help pondering that our Gov's entire raison d'etre here is to be seen to be doing something, whilst actually doing, well, very little. ("Yes, minister, we've put online another fantastic website for the public to access loads of information from").

And what was the cost of this latest 'joining up the web-links' site? Not provided. But you would be forgiven for guessing that it has cost at least a few tens of thousands of pounds.

Oh, sorry, it is a Gov. sponsored website extension. So let's make that a few hundreds of thousands of pounds shall we? Plus how many additional civil servants with ring-fenced gold plated pensions to administer?

Well worth it ...... not!

Now there's a surprise!

What's that, you may ask? The chancellor's pronouncement today that the forthcoming 2p/litre increase in fuel duty is going to be postponed. Full story from the Telegraph.

"Postponing the planned increase in fuel duty is consistent with the Government's commitment to support the Bank of England in maintaining low inflation."

Hmmmm! So its all about controlling inflation? You're kidding, right? Note the key word, 'postponing'. Not canceling, abandoning, withdrawing, but simply postponing; perhaps until things quieten down a little so they can re-introduce it when all our minds are on other things?

Or am I being overtly cynical again?

Eight new nuclear plants to be built

That's the story as told by the Telegraph over the weekend.

I can remember Ol' Golden's pronouncement on the move to use an enhanced nuclear capability as part of the overall plan to reduce the UK's carbon emissions. However, I can also remember the promise that there would be a large public consultation before any plans were agreed and before any building program might commence. Hmmmm, it all rather smacks of a 'done deal' now.

Oh well, at least the cabinet seem to have something practical to do now - "Ministers are to build eight new nuclear power stations across England"

I hope I'm not in the vicinity when the new plants get commissioned!

Gordon the green engine .......

OK, Gordon the 'green' PM. As he today announced a 'green revolution' of measures including the development of thousands more wind turbines and a push for much more energy from other types of renewables as part of a £100bn plan to boost renewable energy across the UK. Full story from the Beeb.

£100 Billion - now that's a serious wad of cash - how is the Gov going to fund it? Oh, "Household bills are expected to increase as a result of the measures". Ahhh, I see, we are all going to pay for it.

And who will manage the 'plan'? Well, I've just read it again and it is not really a plan, it's more of a 'vision' or even a 'strategy'.

So it all looks yet again like another vapour-ware initiative - all sound bites and no actual 'doing'. Not so much a 'green engine', more of a wisp of 'green hot air'.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt; anyone else getting that old 'Deja Vu' feeling?

Another one bites the dust!

We are talking about another Labour Party environmental pledge that was even included in a Government White Paper commitment.

It was "one of just five official Labour Party environmental pledges" announced by David Milliband when he was Environment Secretary. But now, "the little clip-ons which you can attach, and which vividly reveal how much electricity you waste by leaving the iron on when doing something else, or when running the spin-dryer on a sunny day" have gone the way of so many other environmental initiatives that have turned out to be little more than hot air or spin.

Full report is from the Telegraph.

Another abysmal failure, or perhaps, to try to put a more +ve spin on it, a tremendous piece of successful ineptitude? Boy, am I glad I wasn't one of the poor businesses that threw everything into manufacturing these devices. I wonder if they'll be able to claim against the failure to follow through an "Environmental Pledge"? My guess? No chance! Because any 'pledge' coming from a Pol means absolutely sweet Fanny Adams!

You can't build on Greenbelt ......

..... well, errrrr ...... except when you get the Gov's approval to redraw the boundaries so it is no longer classified as Greenbelt! Full disgraceful story from the Telegraph the other day.

"The move will see the land redesignated so it can be sold to developers to try to meet ministers' house-building targets. Official documents warn that the process "will result in significant change" for local communities."

Oh, so its being done so that yet another set of ministerial targets (probably erroneous) can be met. Sorry, but don't these chumps realise that once land has been built on you can never change it back (OK, 'redesignate' it) to Greenbelt!?

And I just love that term they use - 'redesignated' - I seem to recollect that there was a similar term for this back in the old days when parliamentary constituencies regularly had their boundaries changed - wasn't it called gerrymandering?

Targets, Targets & More Targets.....

.... and the majority of them will NOT be met.

I didn't have time to post this from the Telegraph last week but it really does need exposing. It is highlighting a report from the Policy Exchange think tank.

"Two thirds of the key climate change targets made under Labour were now unlikely to be met."

"They found that rather than being an honest motivator of achievement, where failures were acknowleged and lessons learnt, a pattern of "creative accounting" had emerged where targets looked in danger of being missed."

"The report concluded that the sheer number and complexity of targets made them easy to forget or miss and therefore they lost their motivating force."

Not a bulls eye in view - no real surprises there then!

Olympics costs - to infinity and beyond!

Back in February, the DCMS admitted that the cost of staging the London Olympics 'could' (yes, that horrid little word again) quadruple to the staggering sum of some £9 Billion.

We mentioned on this very blog the lack of accountability and the astounding cost estimate spiral for the Olympics swimming pool complex which had been awarded to a sole bidder.

And earlier this morning I heard Tessa Jowell on Radio 5 attempting to defend the fact that the overall estimate has now reached £9.3 Billion! Not that she actually answered any of the questions directly, it was an absolute masterclass in prevarication and the avoidance of real answers.

Well, here's a piece from Sky News reporting on the fact that the Commons Public Accounts Committee is taking the view that "the British public have been "grossly misled" and the original estimate for the Olympic Games was "totally unrealistic","

Difficult to argue with that conclusion, isn't it?

"There was no initial contingency fund set aside. In other words, no allowance was made for the possibility of overspending."

An original estimate without any contingency built-in, a failure to account for VAT, and a minimal security and policing allowance (Hell's teeth! The torch relay through London cost almost £750,000 alone!).

Anybody in the real business world responsible for putting forward such an original estimate would have been sacked long ago by now. But this is our Gov, and accountability, at least at that particular level, doesn't really seem to matter anymore, does it?

The heat is on..........

Ok, it's a poor title, but I couldn't resist it. The song was on radio 2 yesterday, and has been running around in my head ever since.

The 'Heat Project' from Enact Energy is the first that I have found that clearly and concisely sets out exactly what is (and isn't) available to householders in terms of insulation grants that are now managed under the Gov's CERT scheme. (You know, the scheme where they make the energy utility companies pay for it!)

Interesting to note that the actual grants were available pre-CERT, under the Home Energy Conservation Act, as far back as 1996! Can't recollect seeing too much publicity about them back then. Perhaps that was because the grants were handled by our local authorities?

Bringing back the man with the red flag?

Sometimes you come across something which at first glance seems 'okaaaaayyyy' but with a deeper read is actually so badly thought out that it makes you think 'how on earth did they come up with that?'

This is one such, from the Telegraph over the Easter break.

"Speed limits of just 15 miles-per-hour are to be introduced on major roads in planned new towns across the country as part of an effort to reduce global warming."

Ok, so when the internal combustion engine is only efficient at reasonably high RPM speeds, then just how does this reduce global warming? See, driving at maximum 15mph, probably in 1st or 2nd gear in most vehicles, will dramatically increase fuel consumption (many vehicles at low revs will manage only about 10mpg), it will dramatically increase pollution (vehicles running at low revs emit more none-combusted fuel and waaaayyyy more CO2 (and even worse, carbon monoxide), not to mention the fact that increased journey times (well, in many, but obviously not all cases) would generally increase fuel consumption too.

But it's only proposed for new 'eco-towns', where everybody will be living within "within 400 yards of public transport stop and 800 yards from shops." Sorry, but without some amazingly high housing packing density, that sounds much more like a small village to me. Oh, just realised, most villages no longer have public transport, pubs or shops now anyway, do they?

Despite being proposed for the new 'eco-villages' [sorry, 'towns'] only, it has, of course, brought the usual mass howls of protest and declarations of lunacy from the majority of posters. If, (and it really is a big if), the public transport system is planned, put into place and operated, correctly, it might just work. If not, then it will, without doubt, create more environmental pollution.

But then, not much that our Gov puts into place seems to ever work out too well; so what are the chances of these 'eco-towns' schemes being a success? I'm not overtly optimistic.

New build or refurb?

Now it seems to me to be reasonable common sense that the refurb and renovation (i.e. Re:Use) of any building ought to be less costly to the planet than building new from scratch, but, until this from Inside Housing, reporting on research undertaken by the Empty Homes Agency,I'd never seen any actual figures.

The CO2 "produced to build a new home is 4.5 times that needed to refurbish a long-term empty home".

"the carbon impact of the government's new homes target could be cut by 10 million tonnes if part of it was met by reusing and upgrading England's 288,000 long-term empty homes."

Sounds like a pretty reasonable win-win situation to me, but, despite this evidence, I really don't see our Gov reviewing its 'build - build - build' (even on flood plains) policy, do you?

No suprise at all

Given that our Gov cannot even decide what actual CO2 emissions are (see previous post), it comes as no surprise, too, that they are failing to meet their own internal CO2 emission reduction targets, as reported in the Guardian.

"Apart from the Ministry of Defence, which significantly reduced its emissions in 2005/6 following a part privatisation, central government now emits 22% more than it did in 1999, according to the sustainable development commission."

Looking good to achieve the set targets then? (Even though they are probably not sure what the targets actually are.). I think not!

"It recommends that each department urgently reduces its annual energy budget and only uses air travel when there is no alternative."

Hahahahahahaha! Sorry, I'm rolling about laughing at that one! It seems to me that when it comes to the great and good in our Gov, air travel IS the chosen option at ALL times EXCEPT when there is no flight available to a specific destination.

To be fair, sometimes there really is no option; after all, it a damned long way by train from Kings Cross to Bali or Washington.

ADDENDUM 1 (from Junkk Male):

To be fair, it seems they are on the case. PR as provided in full, with a few highlights and comments by yours truly:

New centre of expertise for cutting carbon emissions across Whitehall

Government response to Sustainable Development Commission's Sustainable Development in

A new Centre of Expertise is to be set up to help Whitehall departments achieve their targets for reducing carbon emissions and waste across the government estate.
Details of the Centre of Expertise for Sustainable Procurement (CESP) were unveiled as the Government published its response to the Sustainable Development Commission's latest report on how the Government is meeting its own sustainable objectives for tackling climate change.
Today's annual Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) report by the independent watchdog and adviser on sustainability shows a small improvement in the Government's overall performance against its key ‘eco’ commitments – including a four per cent fall in carbon emissions across the estate by the end of 2006/7. However, the Commission called on departments to urgently build on initiatives already taken to ensure targets can be met and to demonstrate that the Government is leading by example on sustainability.
The CESP will be set up within the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) alongside the Government's Chief Sustainability Officer – a new post to be appointed to take forward a culture of change across all departments in sustainable operations and procurement.
Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell, who took personal charge of work in this area last March, has made sustainability of the government estate one of his four priorities for the civil service. Sir Gus said:
“The Civil Service must be fully committed to sustainable working, reflecting the increasing priority placed on environmental responsibility by the public we serve. We must find new and innovative ways of raising the bar for sustainable working, planning and procurement.
“There is still a long way to go but the establishment of the Centre of Expertise for Sustainable Procurement marks the culmination of significant progress over the last twelve months. This central co-ordination and guidance will help all government departments work to deliver sustainable working practices for the future.”
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said:
“In the year that has elapsed since the period covered by this report, departments have been working to cut emissions, waste and water use and to increase recycling levels.
“The measures we're announcing today will help us to do better in the year ahead.”
Nigel Smith, Chief Executive of OGC, also spoke about the way forward to ensure sustainable practice and procurement. He said:
“Government is taking the issue of sustainability very seriously, but we recognise that we need to do a lot more in order to meet the targets we have set ourselves. We can only do this if we build on the best practice that exists across Government, and if we have good and robust information, so that we know what's happening, what impact our actions are having and where the gaps are. I'm therefore delighted that the new Centre for Expertise is to be established in OGC, and that all Departments are committed to supporting its work.
“OGC has a strong track record in achieving quantifiable results across Government, based on robust data, clear standard-setting, and close and collaborative working with Departments to achieve delivery. We believe we are now well-placed to lead real change.”
The Government accepts in principle all the recommendations made by the SDC, and among the steps that will now be taken are the following:
* From April 2008 all departmental heads will have a specific objective to meet Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) targets, against which their performance will be assessed
* A major Green Government IT programme will be launched in the summer - Another one?
* From 2010 all central Government departments will be included in a pioneering emissions trading scheme, the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), which will compel them to improve their energy efficiency. This mandatory emissions trading scheme will cover around 5000 public and private organisations, including government departments, retailers, banks and local authorities, which combined account for 10 per cent of the UK economy's emissions
* Action to achieve the work space efficiency standard of 12 square metres per FTE will be published in April 2008
* From this summer all new vehicles used by ministers and permanent secretaries (except a small number exempt for operational reasons) will have carbon emissions below 130g/km
* The use of bottled water for meetings and other official business is to be phased (er, can't they just, um, stop?) out across the whole government estate by the summer
In its response to the report, the Government accepts the need for more better and more accurate data against which the progress of departments can be measured. A major validation exercise to upgrade the quality of data provided to the SDC and the baselines used to assess performance has been undertaken in the past two months.

1. The 2007 Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) report, published today, assesses the performance of central Government operations for 2006/07 against the targets of the Framework for Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE).

2. The Government's formal response to the 2007 SDiG report can be found at

I must confess that I only just got around to this by virtue of rolling on the floor laughing silly at the notion of the creation of another 'Centre of Expertise', mind. That those highly talented, highly paid folk in various departments need yet more folk in new ones to help them all do, er, less, is choice.

Addendum 2: (Dave)
Ooooo-errr. A response from Hilary Benn, no less, to an earlier article claiming that our Gov was issuing 'misleading' figures on the overall UK's CO2 emissions. "It is nonsense". So that's OK then.

We are committed to tackling climate change

Oh, really? You could have fooled me.

That post heading is the response by a spokesman from the DBERR (it used to be the DTI), to an accusation that the government itself places hurdles in the way of simple, and relatively cheap, energy saving domestic solar hot water installations, as reported in the Telegraph.

A few years back, you could easily get a grant of £400 towards the installation of solar water heating, providing the chosen kit was on the approved list (tested and checked out for free) and you used an approved installer (simple capabilities assessment). The grant is still available, but nowadays you have to be equivalently as lucky as to have won the national lottery jackpot to have a chance of getting it. Contrast that with Northern Ireland, where under the control of the assembly, the grant is £1100, and is very easily available.

"we have been disappointed, indeed astonished, to find that we face a host of obstacles from government, despite the rhetoric on combating climate change and the commitment to renewable energy". That's a comment from Hugh Synge, founder of a solar water heating business. And he's quite correct, the grant system is now an utter shambles; now the installers have to pay £1800 to be registered as approved (a lot for any small business); and now to get any solar water heating model approved by the BRE costs some £6000+ (a hurdle my own business simply cannot afford to get over as yet). And we haven't even mentioned the dog's breakfast of obstacles that planning permission puts in the way of any installation, despite multiple promises that planning permission requirements will be waived for renewable energy installations.

This would be so simple to sort out, and the savings for the consumer, and the planet, would be extremely significant. But, of course, that would require some real action, not just 'commitment', and a load of sickly green bullsh*t. Let's face it, there is so much more mileage, kudos and good publicity in jumping on easy things like the banning plastic bags bandwagon, isn't there? And all this at a time when we see headlines like 'Climate change could spark war' from Metro, and 'Millions of climate change migrants will overwhelm Europe', from the Mail on Sunday.

Committed? If you ask me, the whole lot of them ought to be!

More facts, figures and statistics!

Yet another set of facts and figures that may be open to question.

Addendum below. Post redated from 02/02/08 accordingly.

I spotted the gov's official CO2 emission figures the other day and thought that as the supposed reduction was so small, it was hardly worth commenting on. However, as reported by Channel 4, some green campaigners claim the figures are 'misleading', especially as they "ignore emissions from international flights, which are increasing."

In fact, they reckon that if you add in the international flights factor, the gov's figure would show a 5.5% year on year INCREASE in CO2 emissions.

Errrm ....... just who the hell are we supposed to believe?

We are simply left in an unknowing dilemma when facts, figures and statistics are massaged to suit a particular argument, as we have already commented on before.

ADDENDUM (Junkk Male) - Now here's a useful thing. A little effort of C4's I subscribed to only recently, called Fact Check. And looky here: FactCheck: have UK emissions really gone down? Neither hyped up nor spun down? I think they're being generous.

ps; And as the typo king I'm one to talk, but have to love their spelling of 'largerly'

Wasting money deliberately? Or just plain incompetence?

Those were the two questions that popped into my head when I spotted this in The Times earlier today.

The Olympic aquatics centre (the posh name for the swimming pool complex) was originally estimated (and budgeted) at some £70 million. The current costing (errrm, no, still not actually fixed) now stands at some £214 million.

Now an additional £144 million might not seem an obscene increase in the overall governmental scheme of Olympics expenditure, but, to me, it smacks of utter incompetence in the initial estimating process. What the hell did they do? Sit around a table and pull random numbers out of a tombola?

Ah, OK, they blame the increase on VAT and inflation. "much of the disparity is explained by VAT and inflation. While venue costs estimated during the bidding process were in 2004 prices, they must be stated in 2012 prices."

So, with VAT fixed at 17.5% (or, just maybe, our gov knows that VAT will be set at a rate of 100% by 2012?), and inflation at the official government figures of just over 2.3% (not that any single one of us believes that anyway), we get a tripling in cost between 2004 and 2012? Come on, we are NOT that stupid!

And, what a surprise, the bidding contract was won and assigned to ..... deep intake of breath ..... a sole bidder! "The Olympic Delivery Authority is set to sign a construction contract with Balfour Beatty, the sole bidder."

As well as incompetence and profligacy, this smacks to me of profiteering, greed and may even be tinged with a hint of fraud. And all that money is coming out of your own back pocket one way or another to be trousered elsewhere!

Whatever happened to accountability? LOL!

Addendum: (1/2/08)
The Daily Mail appears to have identified a few 'fat cats' which just might partly explain why costs are overrunning so much.

So why, oh why, can't our lot do it?

Yet another example of a country's sensible government issuing tax incentives for the adoption of energy saving measures as reported by EDIE. Well done Ireland!

Our lot seem so stuck with their heads in the sand (or should that be Northern Rock?), talking 'til they're blue in the face, but at the end of the day, achieving, and incentivising, absolutely nothing.

Plus ca change.