Iraqi decision means election preparations can now proceed, Ban says

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed today's approval by Iraqi lawmakers of amendments to electoral laws, saying the move – which follows weeks of deadlock – means national parliamentary polls can be held in January as scheduled.

The Fate of Health Care Legislation Lies in the US Senate

Big question mark: Fate of health care in Senate

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate.

Speaking from the Rose Garden about 14 hours after the late Saturday vote, Obama urged senators to be like runners on a relay team and “take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people.”

The problem is that the Senate won’t run with it. The government health insurance plan included in the House bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic moderates who hold the balance of power in the Senate.

If a government plan is part of the deal, “as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent whose vote Democrats need to overcome GOP filibusters.

“The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said dismissively.

Democrats did not line up to challenge him. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has yet to schedule floor debate and hinted last week that senators may not be able to finish health care this year.

Nonetheless, the House vote provided an important lesson in how to succeed with less-than-perfect party unity, and one that Senate Democrats may be able to adapt. House Democrats overcame their own divisions and broke an impasse that threatened the bill after liberals grudgingly accepted tougher restrictions on abortion funding, as abortion opponents demanded.

In Senate, the stumbling block is the idea of the government competing with private insurers. Liberals may have to swallow hard and accept a deal without a public plan in order to keep the legislation alive. As in the House, the compromise appears to be to the right of the political spectrum.

Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who voted for a version of the Senate bill in committee, has given the Democrats a possible way out. She’s proposing to allow a government plan as a last resort, if after a few years premiums keep escalating and local health insurance markets remain in the grip of a few big companies. This is the “trigger” option.

That approach appeals to moderates such as Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. “If the private market fails to reform, there would be a fallback position,” Landrieu said last week. “It should be triggered by choice and affordability, not by political whim.”

Lieberman said he opposes the public plan because it could become a huge and costly entitlement program. “I believe the debt can break America and send us into a recession that’s worse than the one we’re fighting our way out of today,” he said.

For now, Reid is trying to find the votes for a different approach: a government plan that states could opt out of.

The Senate is not likely to jump ahead this week on health care. Reid will keep meeting with senators to see if he can work out a political formula that will give him not only the 60 votes needed to begin debate, but the 60 needed to shut off discussion and bring the bill to a final vote.

Toward the end of the week, the Congressional Budget Office may report back with a costs and coverage estimate on Reid’s bill, which he assembled from legislation passed by the Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The Finance Committee version does not include a government plan.

Reid has pledged to Obama that he will get the bill done by the end of the year and remains committed to doing that, according to a Senate leadership aide.

Both the House and Senate bills gradually would extend coverage to nearly all Americans by providing government subsidies to help pay premiums. The measures would bar insurers’ practices such as charging more to those in poor health or denying them coverage altogether.

All Americans would be required to carry health insurance, either through an employer, a government plan or by purchasing it on their own.

To keep down costs, the government subsidies and consumer protections don’t take effect until 2013. During the three-year transition, both bills would provide $5 billion in federal dollars to help get coverage for people with medical problems who are turned down by private insurers.

Both House and Senate would expand significantly the federal-state Medicaid health program for low-income people.

The majority of people with employer-provided health insurance would not see changes. The main beneficiaries would be some 30 million people who have no coverage at work or have to buy it on their own. The legislation would create a federally regulated marketplace where they could shop for coverage.

The are several major differences between the bills.

_The House would require employers to provide coverage; the Senate does not.

_The House would pay for the coverage expansion by raising taxes on upper-income earners; the Senate uses a variety of taxes and fees, including a levy on high-cost insurance plans.

_The House plan costs about $1.2 trillion over 10 years; the Senate version is under $900 billion.

By defusing the abortion issue — at least for now — the House may have helped the long-term prospects for the bill. Catholic bishops also eager to expand society’s safety net may yet endorse the final legislation.

Lieberman appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” while Graham was CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Row breaks out over Gordon Brown’s plan to tax City profits

International levy on financial trading would help developing world deal with climate change
Kathryn Hopkins and Heather Stewart
The Observer, Sunday 8 November 2009
A row blew up last night after Gordon Brown promoted plans for an international tax on City dealing that could raise funds for the world’s poor and help developing countries tackle climate change.
No sooner had the prime minister floated the idea of a tax on bank transactions than it was shot down by US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF.
At a G20 meeting in St Andrews, Scotland, Brown said the “social contract” between financiers and the British public had broken down and needed to change. Keen to show that Labour would be tougher on bankers than the Conservatives, who are leading the row over bonuses, the prime minister urged fellow world leaders to back plans for a “transaction tax”, which could be used to meet the costs of future banking bailouts, and to fund development projects, including helping developing countries to develop greener technology.
However, he then suffered a series of rebuffs – led by Geithner, who said that “a day-by-day financial transaction tax is not something we are prepared to support”. The reality is that without American backing the move would collapse. Flaherty said: “We are not in the business of raising taxes, we are in the business of lowering taxes in Canada. It is not an idea we would look at.”
Strauss-Kahn was also unimpressed, saying he believed such a tax was unlikely to be adopted as “transactions” were difficult to measure.
Brown had demanded that “there must be a better economic and social contract between financial institutions and the public based on trust and a just distribution of risks and rewards”. He stressed that for the levy to work, it would need to be implemented worldwide. “Let me be clear: Britain will not move unless others move with us.
“I do not in any way underestimate the enormous and difficult practical and technical issues that will need to be overcome that a globally cohesive system raises. But I do not think these difficulties should prevent us from considering with urgency the legitimate issues I have discussed.”
Following his success last year in leading the international debate on the rescue of banks, the prime minister is determined to push himself forward as a leader of other global initiatives such as the fights to limit climate change and to combat poverty in the developing world. But on this occasion his views received, at best, a mixed reception. After Brown’s intervention, G20 finance ministers asked IMF experts to complete by April a detailed study on how such a tax could be levied, to allow world leaders to make a decision on whether it should be implemented.
The prime minister’s conversion to the idea, which is commonly known as a “Tobin tax” after the Nobel prize-winning economist who first proposed it, stunned the anti-poverty campaigners who have long fought to force a transaction tax on to the economic agenda and have been repeatedly rebuffed by a pro-City Labour government.
“A tax on banks would be a major step towards clearing up the mess caused by their greed,” said Max Lawson, senior policy adviser at Oxfam. “People aren’t just losing their jobs. The economic crisis is killing people in Africa. We must see the banks pay back something.”
Claire Melamed, head of policy at ActionAid, said: “If world leaders can’t take the bankers by the scruff of the neck and start shaking the transaction tax out of them at this point, then they never will. This is a test of whether we can force the financiers to make a bigger contribution to society, from which they make their profits.”
Global revenues from the tax could be up to £420bn a year, according to an authoritative Austrian study. They would be divided between the country where the trading took place and an international fund, which could be used to tackle poverty or climate change. For Britain, with its status as one of the world’s largest financial centres, if just half the revenues were retained by the Treasury, it could bring a windfall of £45bn.
France and Germany have championed the tax, but until now the British government has resisted it.

G20 makes little progress on climate financing

Reuters, Saturday November 7 2009
* Group of 20 divided on push to reach climate finance deal
* Agreement needed before key Copenhagen summit in Dec
* Stalemate follows failure to progress at Barcelona summit
By Toni Vorobyova and Anna Willard
ST ANDREWS, Scotland, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Rich countries and developing nations fought over climate change on Saturday, failing to make progress on financing ahead of a major environmental summit in Copenhagen next month.
Britain, which was hosting a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Scotland, was determined to push toward a $100 billion deal to cover the costs of climate change by 2020.
But talks got bogged down in a row with large developing countries about who should foot the bill.
“There was a heated argument,” Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said.
“I think we should be very careful in approaching the possibility of piling big new commitments onto developing countries as this can put a brake on the pursuing of other crucial tasks such as the eradication of poverty.”
The climate change discussion had dragged on for hours and a French official said the debate was so intense there was a risk the final statement would not mention climate change at all.
In the end, they agreed on the need “to increase significantly and urgently the scale and predictability of finance to implement an ambitious international agreement”.
European Union leaders agreed in October that developing countries would need 100 billion euros a year by 2020 to battle climate change.
About 22-50 billion euros of the total will come from the public purse in rich countries worldwide and the EU is expected to provide between 20 and 30 percent of that.
“It’s a bit disappointing because we would have liked to have done a little bit more work,” said French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde, adding that Europe’s offer was “substantial”.
STUMBLING BLOCK
China is often denounced by Western critics as the main obstacle to agreement, because it argues developing countries should not submit to binding international caps on emissions while they grow out of poverty. In turn, China and other emerging powers have said the rich countries have done far too little in vowing to cut their own greenhouse gas output, and in offering technology and money to the Third World to help cope with global warming.
“We have not come as far as we had hoped even this morning,” said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
“We have not reached an agreement. There is still some work to do. I hope everybody knows that Copenhagen must not be a failure.”
A European source said there was also frustration in a sunny St Andrews at the stance of the United States, who were sitting on the fence over climate change financing.
A 175-nation U.N. meeting in Barcelona ended on Friday with little progress towards a global deal on climate change but narrowed options on helping the poor to adapt to climate change, sharing technology and cutting emissions from deforestation.
The final U.N. preparatory meeting before Copenhangen re-opened a rich-poor divide on sharing the burden of curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and criticism of the United States for not tabling a formal, carbon-cutting offer.
About 40 world leaders will go to Copenhagen next month to improve the chances of clinching a climate deal, the United Nations has said. [ID:nL648180]
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, addressing the G20 delegates, said climate change was a test of global cooperation every bit as stern as the world financial crisis. (Additional reporting by Gernot Heller and Jan Strupczewski, writing by Sumeet Desai and Patrick Graham; editing by Mike Peacock)

Climate change commitments of different countries

The US has said it will not sign up to a climate change deal unless developing nations also cut pollution. But what have rich and poor nations signed up to so far?

By Louise Gray, Environment CorrespondentPublished: 9:00AM GMT 07 Nov 2009

The European Union has said it will slash emissions by 20 pe rcent by 2020 compared with the 1990 level
Pledges by rich countries on 2020 levels
UN: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the rich world should cut emissions by 25 to 40 per cent by 2020 on 1990 levels to keep temperature rise below 2C (3.6F).

EU: 20 per cent by 2020 on 1990 levels, rising to 30 per cent if other countries also agree to take action.
US: Legislation is currently going through the Senate that would commit the US to cuts of up to 20 per cent on 2005 levels by 2020. This equates to around six per cent on 1990 levels. But the US insists its target is in fact stronger than the EU target, because the EU has already made most of its cuts and only needs to cut carbon by a further 12 per cent on 2005 levels.
UK: Britain will cut emissions by 34 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, rising to 42 per cent if there is a deal in Copenhagen.
Japan: Since a new Government came into force Japan has been committed to cutting emissions by 25 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020.
Russia: 10 to 15 per cent by 2020 on 1990 levels. However environmentalists say this equates to an increase of around 2 per cent on 2005 levels. There are also concerns that Russia could carry forward huge amount of unused cuts due to the collapse of the Soviet Union from earlier commitments.
Canada: The Government has targets of 20 per cent by 2020 on 2006 levels. But it is estimated this will only equate to six per cent on 1990 levels.
Australia: The Government has committed Australia to cuts of between 5 to 15 per cent by 2020 from 2000 levels.
Pledges by poor nations
UN: The least developed nations, that need to develop in the next ten years to fight poverty, do not have to do anything. But other developing nations like China and India must take action against “business as usual”.
China: The Chinese have committed to a 20 per cent cut in “energy intensity” from 2006 to 2010 and by a “notable margin” by 2020. China will nearly double the proportion of renewables in its overall energy mix - from 8 per cent in 2006 to 15 per cent in 2020.
India: The Government also insist they will also make cuts against “business as usual” by investing massively in renewables like solar.
Indonesia: One of the few developing countries to sign up to targets has committed to cutting emissions by 26 per cent on “business as usual” levels by 2020.
Brazil: Committed to “drastically reducing” deforestation, its principle source of carbon emissions.
Mexico: By 2012, Mexico will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 8 per cent or 50 million tonnes per year.
The Maldives: The small island in the Indian Ocean is committed to going carbon neutral in the next ten years. Other small island states in danger of sea level rises are also planning to cut emissions.

Landmark Health Bill Passes US House on Close Vote

Landmark health bill passes House on close vote

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The Democratic-controlled House has narrowly passed landmark health care reform legislation, handing President Barack Obama a hard won victory on his signature domestic priority.

Republicans were nearly unanimous in opposing the plan that would expand coverage to tens of millions of Americans who lack it and place tough new restrictions on the insurance industry.

The 220-215 vote late Saturday cleared the way for the Senate to begin a long-delayed debate on the issue that has come to overshadow all others in Congress.

A triumphant Speaker Nancy Pelosi compared the legislation to the passage of Social Security in 1935 and Medicare 30 years later.

Obama, who went to Capitol Hill earlier on Saturday to lobby wavering Democrats, said in a statement after the vote, “I look forward to signing it into law by the end of the year.”

“It provides coverage for 96 percent of Americans. It offers everyone, regardless of health or income, the peace of mind that comes from knowing they will have access to affordable health care when they need it,” said Rep. John Dingell, the 83-year-old Michigan lawmaker who has introduced national health insurance in every Congress since succeeding his father in 1955.

But minority Republicans cataloged their objections across hours of debate on the 1,990-page, $1.2 trillion legislation.

“We are going to have a complete government takeover of our health care system faster than you can say, `this is making me sick,’” said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich.

In the run-up to a final vote, conservatives from the two political parties joined forces to impose tough new restrictions on abortion coverage in insurance policies to be sold to many individuals and small groups.

The legislation would require most Americans to carry insurance and provide federal subsidies to those who otherwise could not afford it. Large companies would have to offer coverage to their employees. Both consumers and companies would be slapped with penalties if they defied the government’s mandates.

Insurance industry practices such as denying coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions would be banned, and insurers would no longer be able to charge higher premiums on the basis of gender or medical history. The industry would also lose its exemption from federal antitrust restrictions on price fixing and market allocation.

At its core, the measure would create a federally regulated marketplace where consumers could shop for coverage. In the bill’s most controversial provision, the government would sell insurance, although the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that premiums for it would be more expensive than for policies sold by private companies.

The bill drew the votes of 219 Democrats and Rep. Joseph Cao, a first-term Republican who holds an overwhelmingly Democratic seat in New Orleans. Opposed were 176 Republicans and 39 Democrats.

From the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a statement saying, “We realize the strong will for reform that exists, and we are energized that we stand closer than ever to reforming our broken health insurance system.”

To pay for the expansion of coverage, the bill cuts Medicare’s projected spending by more than $400 billion over a decade. It also imposes a tax surcharge of 5.4 percent on income over $500,000 in the case of individuals and $1 million for families.

Ethical investments: What shade of green will you choose?

With National Ethical Investment Week about to start, Sarah Pennells guides newcomers through the three main types of fund and suggests where to go to find out more
Sarah Pennnells
The Guardian, Saturday 7 November 2009
You recycle, switch off lights and have a water butt. But is your wallet green? Tomorrow sees the start of National Ethical Investment Week (NEIW), a campaign designed to spread the message of ethical and green investing. Only 8% of people invest ethically, although 33% of those questioned by YouGov for NEIW said they would consider it in the next five years.
Ethical investing can be tricky to get to grips with if you are a first-timer. With dozens of different funds and some off-putting jargon, it is not surprising that some just plonk their cash in the first fund they come across.
But this is not the route to investing happiness. You might end up with a fund that bears no relation to your own ethical views or one with a great track record in … abysmal performance. You do not need to be an ethical expert to invest £50 a month in an Isa, but it helps if you understand the basics.
There is no foolproof way to categorise funds because they tend to overlap, but they can be – broadly – broken down into ethical, green and engagement funds (which put pressure on companies to improve their behaviour). Don’t expect funds in the same category to invest in the same companies: it will be down to their focus and investment approach.
Ethical funds either refuse to invest in certain companies or sectors, positively invest in others, or both. Those on the banned list will vary but could include cigarette and alcohol producers, armaments manufacturers and businesses supporting regimes with a bad record on human rights.
Of all the categories, it is the easiest to explain, according to Amanda Davidson, of independent financial adviser Baigrie Davies: “If you ask a client what they want to do with their money, they’ll always start with a list of what they don’t want to invest in.”
The first green fund launched 21 years ago. Now there are dozens; some exclude companies with a bad environmental record, others invest in specific sectors, such as renewable energy.
But if you think green funds buy only solar panel and wind turbine makers, you will be disappointed. For example, Jupiter Ecology fund, the oldest green fund, invests in a producer of free range and organic sausages.
Funds that take engagement seriously can have a far bigger influence than traditional ethical funds. By “engaging”, fund managers lobby chief executives of companies they invest in and use their vote at shareholder meetings to bring about change.
The providers
Ethical funds use either in-house or external research (or both) to assess companies before they invest and while some funds are very strict, with a long list of companies they cannot invest in, others are not. In theory, the stricter the fund the worse the performance should be, but Aegon’s Equity fund, with one of the strictest screening criteria, has (until recently) performed well. “It has very simple negative screens covering activities such as human rights, armaments and labour relations,” says John Ditchfield, director of ethical independent financial adviser Barchester Green Investment. “It also has consistent fund management.”
However, its performance has taken something of a battering in recent months; falling from the top 25% in its sector – over both five and 10 years – to the bottom 25% (which Aegon says is because it cannot invest in large banks or oil and mining companies).
The biggest and best-known ethical funds are the Stewardship group, launched by Friends Provident 25 years ago and now managed by F&C. They are unusual in that fund managers can only invest in companies approved by an external committee.
Green funds Jupiter’s Ecology fund was the first green fund and remains popular. Its negative screens are important, but it actively invests in companies that benefit the environment. Julian Parrott, from Ethical Futures, based in Edinburgh, says: “It’s a broad-based fund with a strong environmental focus which includes shares in UK companies.”
However, Lee Coates, at independent financial adviser Ethical Investors, likes the Guinness Alternative Energy fund’s pure environmental approach. “Some [other] green funds invest in companies that use renewable energy, not because they’re generating it.”
Engagement funds A number of fund managers use a mixture of positive and negative screening and engagement and some, including Aviva Investors, are particularly active at engaging (on anything from disclosing carbon emissions to improving employee relations). Steve Waygood, Aviva Investors’ head of sustainability, research and engagement, believes there are real benefits to this approach: “First, to support business behaviour that generates long-term value for investors and second, to ensure that the board is behaving with integrity in its dealings.”
Other fund managers that engage include Henderson, Co-operative Investments and F&C. Before you invest, find out when the fund introduced its engagement policy, how active it is and what information it publishes.
Poor performers
You are likely to have more short-term volatility if you invest ethically, but some funds – such as Sovereign’s Ethical fund – stand out for the wrong reasons. Figures from Trustnet show it made a loss of 16.9% over five years, while another ethical fund, run by Old Mutual, produced just 9.6% over five years (well below the sector average).
The advisers
If you want an adviser with relevant expertise, look at the website Yourethicalmoney.org, which has a directory of ethical IFAs. A good one should ask about your approach and not simply recommend funds on the basis that you’re interested in “ethical” investment.
Useful contacts
Yourethicalmoney.org is a one-stop shop for information on green and ethical investments; neiw.org has consumer-friendly information on ethical investing; Trustnet.com tracks funds’ performance and has an ‘ethical’ filter.

From the Inbox - In W. Va they are blasting our clean energy future today!

Dear Friend, Last week, Massey Energy began dynamiting Coal River Mountain in West Virginia - the site of a proposed 328-megawatt wind farm - to prepare for a massive mountaintop removal coal mining operation. Today, organizations across the nation are joining forces with RAN to send a powerful message to the Obama Administration to stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain and protect our clean energy resources. With your help, this could be a day of action that makes history. Coal River Mountain can be a wind farm that provides 85,000 households with electricity, 700 long-term green jobs, gives back $1.7 million in annual county taxes and stands as a model for clean energy across the region. Or, it can be a 6,000-acre dirty energy wasteland. The fate of Coal River Mountain is up to you. Contact the Obama Administration today. Ask them to immediately stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain and preserve our nation’s clean energy resources. To local residents, Coal River Mountain is a last stand. It is one of the most dangerous examples of blasting for dirty coal and one of the most profound examples of hope that exists in our country. It is a crossroads. There are two urgent reasons for you to join the cause to save this mountain: because people are in danger, and because we are blowing up, literally dynamiting, one of our nation’s most promising sources of clean energy. But really, the most important reason for you to act is because you can. Coal River Mountain must become our line in the sand. We can no longer allow fossil fuel interests to build more pipelines, belch out more pollution, and destroy more mountains that could become clean energy wind farms. If we can stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain, we can stop talking about a clean energy future and start living in a clean energy present. Demand that the Obama Administration stop the blasting today. For the mountains, Scott Parkin Rainforest Action Network Save Coal River Mountain, our best hope for a clean energy future. Contact the Obama Administration today! Host a screening of the movie Coal Country in your town! Check out the latest posts from RAN’s blog, The Understory: See JPMorgan Chase’s Carnival of Destruction

Chris Smith - the respectable radical who is plotting a green revolution

Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester

Chris Smith is the respectable radical. He was the first openly gay MP. As the Culture Secretary in Tony Blair’s Government, he pioneered free admissions to museums. Later, from the back benches, he masterminded opposition in the House of Commons to the war in Iraq. Now Lord Smith of Finsbury wants to start a green revolution — and the mild-mannered rambler might just succeed.
As chairman of the Environment Agency, his job is to persuade a sceptical public that, despite the recession, climate change remains the greatest threat to Britain.
Speaking at his office overlooking the Thames before his organisation’s conference next week, he insists that bullying does not work, and instead wants to face down the growing band of climate-change agnostics: “The number of people claiming climate change isn’t happening is minuscule, and they have no authority among the scientific community,” he says. “They are mavericks, not backed up by the evidence.”
It is irrelevant, he says, that the world has recently been getting cooler. “You have to look at the trend over 20 years, and that clearly shows global warming. There are alarming new phenomena — the floods here two years ago, the glaciers melting. The evidence is all around us.”

Managing change is not enough, he argues; Britain has to counteract it. “We are facing an average rise of two degrees over the next 50 years. That will cause difficulties with water resources — summer flows in rivers will be down 50 per cent. It will cause movements of population around the world as people flee less habitable areas. Sea rise will threaten urban areas, there will be pressure on agricultural resources.”
People need to understand the implications of global warming, he says. One stark example is that changes to the coastline will accelerate — and the Environment Agency will no longer be able to protect all the crumbling cliffs: “Suffolk, Norfolk and Lincolnshire coasts are particularly vulnerable to erosion. The risk will increase. My determination is to do what we can to defend where we can . . . But there’ll be some parts that can’t be defended in perpetuity. We can’t build a concrete wall around the whole of England.”
Lord Smith is urging the Government to provide money for local authorities to buy cliff-top properties at risk of tumbling into the sea over the next 20 years. “We estimate there are 200 to 250 properties. The local authority would purchase property from the current owner, then lease it back to them.
“Then, if it gets to a stage where they can’t live in it any more because of the erosion, they would have the funds to move somewhere else. You are talking not just about a temporary flood: it’s the permanent loss of someone’s property through no fault of their own.”
At the moment, people may be more worried about unemployment and bankers’ bonuses, but Lord Smith says that the economy and environment go together. “If we are serious about coming out of recession in a more sustainable way, we have to look at green products, carbon capture, tidal power. These are the new industries for tomorrow and hold answers to economic problems.”
The problems are real, he says, but that does not mean that “climate change deniers” should be outcast: “They are dangerous, but it’s not like racism or sexism or homophobia.” This week, an employee successfully sued a company for not taking his environmental concerns seriously. “People should be allowed to believe passionately in environmental change — for them it can be like a religion.”
The devil, in his view, is Jeremy Clarkson, presenter of the motoring show Top Gear: “He would not be my favourite TV viewing, but there will be more rejoicing in Heaven for one sinner who repents. I would like him to be up there saying what we need is to develop an electric car that can beat the world. I want the thrill of speed but from electricity not fossil fuel.”
Lord Smith is disappointed that Gordon Brown’s moral compass points more to Africa than to the environment. “The Government hasn’t done enough on developing a national energy efficiency programme on energy efficiency in people’s homes. It is the low-hanging fruit. You get amazing benefits and cheaper bills, and create a lot of jobs. It’s win-win, but there is nothing co-ordinated.”
Labour has accused David Cameron of hypocrisy on the environment for cycling to Westminster — but having his briefcase driven by a chauffeur. Lord Smith, who is now a crossbencher, says: “The Tories will be equally green, the husky hugging is genuine. The climate change debate isn’t partisan.”
Individuals rather than governments hold the key to preventing global meltdown, he says. “I try and eat more fish and less meat. I don’t have a windmill on my house — there’s some evidence that the carbon generated by making a windmill for a house outweighs the benefit — but I want to put solar panels on the roof.
“I try and be sensible about how often I flush the loo, I usually have showers although occasionally I’ll permit myself the guilty luxury of a bath. I don’t fly a huge amount, I turn lights off religiously, I recycle everything I can.”
When it comes to other people, however, he prefers bribes to bans. He is not going to force everyone to become vegans. “It’s impractical to suggest the world stops eating meat. Cows produce pollution, we can’t stop people eating beef, but we can change the nature of feed stuff and to diminish greenhouse gas.” Chicken and lamb are “probably better” than beef, but there shouldn’t be a steak duty. “Taxes aren’t the answer. We need to change agricultural production.”
He regards himself as a civil libertarian — he wants to nudge rather than bludgeon travellers away from air travel. “We can’t ban all travel. We need to find better ways of getting around. Instead of taking planes in Europe, we have to develop high-speed rail.” He was appalled by the announcement this week of Britain’s first £1,000 rail fare. “It costs more to travel by train than plane . . . I think ultimately you need more subsidy to make rail travel more attractive.”
His big idea is to give everyone a personal carbon allowance, which would limit their use of air travel, heating and fast cars. “People could choose what they wanted to do, but life would become more expensive if they went over their carbon limit. They could sell on anything they didn’t use.”
He thinks that it would be fairer to allow travellers to take a small number of cheap flights every year, rather than taxing budget airlines out of existence. “People on limited means need holidays too,” he says. But does he agree with the environmentalist and writer Jonathon Porritt, that people who have more than two children are behaving irresponsibly? “Population is a big issue but you can’t have a quota,” he says.
When dealing with the supermarkets, he says that he prefers using carrots to sticks. “Home delivery is a very good, convenient idea that saves on the carbon footprint.” The Nimbys, however, are not going to be let off so easily. “I want wind power all over the countryside. There are only a few locations in the most precious and beautiful bits of landscape that would not be appropriate. As a general principle we need more wind farms.”
Lord Smith is not a conservative environmentalist, like the Prince of Wales. So does he think that the Prince is right to intervene on controversial issues? “Prince Charles is a useful voice, but he isn’t right on everything. I disagree with his blanket opposition to GM food.”
Lord Smith’s favourite political heir apparent is Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, with whom he has worked closely since being appointed to the Environment Agency last year. “He’s been up for making big decisions. Far too often government ministers lose sight of the wood for the trees, Ed still sees the big story. He doesn’t dither.”
Unlike the Prime Minister? “You can read polls as well as I can,” says the former Blair ally. “In the twelfth year of Government, there is inevitably a sense that things are changing. The question is less who [the leader] is, and more what they are saying to the electorate about the purpose of the Government. I think Labour need to get much more vigorous about the story they are telling.”
If he were in the Cabinet, would he be privately suggesting that Mr Brown might like to retire to his compost heap in Kirkcaldy? “I wouldn’t be in the Cabinet because I would have resigned over Iraq,” he says.
The world is gathering for a summit on climate change in Copenhagen next month, but Lord Smith admits that a significant agreement is unlikely. “The Chinese have really taken this agenda forward, the Americans are very up for it, the problems lie in the American political system. Copenhagen is going to be the start not the end of the process.”
CV
Age 57
Education Pembroke College, Cambridge and Harvard
Career 1983 elected Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury
1997-2001 Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
2003-2008 chairman, Clore Leadership Programme
2005 becomes life peer, privy councillor
2007 chairman, Advertising Standards Authority
2008 chairman, Environment Agency
Quickfire
Munros or Everest? Munros
Hallowe’en or Bonfire Night? Bonfire Night
Seabed or space? Seabed
Leather or plastic? Neither
Brahms or Bob Dylan? Both
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall or Gordon Ramsay? Fearnley-Whittingstall

Sainsbury’s to go greener with carbon dioxide

Sainsbury’s is to become the first UK supermarket to ban the use of “super-global-warming” chemicals in its refrigerators – instead cooling its food by carbon dioxide.

By Rowena MasonPublished: 11:34PM GMT 07 Nov 2009
The decision, due to be announced this week by Sir Justin King, the chief executive of Sainsbury’s, will come into force as a group of MPs and green campaigners lobby for a ban on so-called F-gas (hydrofluorocarbons) chemicals by 2015.
Experts have calculated that F-gases, the currently used refrigerants, are 1,420 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide, making the annual leakage from UK supermarkets the equivalent of one billion trips to the shops by car.
The refrigerants became widely used during the 1990s to replace gases that harmed the ozone layer – but have turned out to be equally attacked by environmentalists.
Sainsbury’s, which is expected to report first half pre-tax profit on Wednesday of £300m, up 16pc from £259m last year, will make a multi-million pound investment in the new refrigeration. It claims the move will cut overall emissions by one third.
However, Sir Justin has raised fears that Britain’s workforce is ill-equipped to deal with the cuts in emissions demanded by the Government, after the supermarket had to ship in engineers from abroad to tackle the move to carbon dioxide refrigeration.
He described the lack of specialist engineers in the UK as a “serious barrier” preventing companies from helping Britain meet its targets on climate change.
“The Government needs to seize the opportunity here by helping people re-train to work in the rapidly expanding green sector,” Sir Justin said.
Earlier this year, Asda trialled green refrigeration at its “eco-store” near Liverpool, while Marks & Spencer and Morrisons have said they will not use F-gases in new equipment. So far, no other supermarkets have announced full plans to switch to carbon dioxide as a refrigerant.
Doug Parr, chief scientist of Greenpeace UK, said the Government ought to learn from industry’s lead on removing F-gases from the environment, and called on others to make similar pledges.
Carbon-copy supermarkets
The past few years have seen a war among supermarkets claiming to have the greenest stores of them all.
Asda says its Bootle site cuts emissions by 35pc, Sainsbury says its Dartmouth store will reduce emissions by 40pc and Tesco claims its Shrewsbury store lowers emissions by 60pc.
Tesco is considering whether to build its own windfarm to become a zero-carbon business by 2050.
Also, Morrisons wants to cut road miles by 6pc before the end of 2010, M&S aims to make UK & Irish operations carbon neutral in three years and Waitrose will recycle 75pc of all waste by 2012.