Down you go…

And so ex-UKIP MEP Tom Wise has been jailed for fraudulently claiming £39,000 in allowances from the European Parliament. He used his monthly staff allowance to pay for “fine wines” and other personal expenditure.

His researcher, Lindsay Jenkins, was cleared of all charges after Wise admitted that documents he had her sign were blank at the time.

Just a thought - but does anyone out there know if any movement has been made to reclaim the £538,290 in “unduly paid” expenses that Den Dover owed the European Parliament when he was awarded a medal from the very same institution for his “vital contribution” as his term came to an end in the summer?

(This is the kind of thing that caused Chris Davies MEP to go beserk at the Lib Dem conference - see here if you haven’t already)

What Judge Goldstone Says About the United States in Relationship toIsraeli Policy

Wednesday, November 11, 2009
14:09 Mecca time, 11:09 GMT

What Goldstone says about the US

By Mark LeVine
Courtesy of Al Jazeera

Richard Goldstone walked through Gaza City after Israel’s war on the territory

Opponents of the Goldstone report might well be hoping that after its lopsided condemnation in the US House of Representatives and successful relegation back to the UN’s Human Rights Commission, the report will become little more than an historical footnote in a decades-long conflict.

This might in fact occur, given the imbalance of power between the contending sides. But historians can do a great deal with footnotes.

When the glare of history is finally shone upon the whole affair, it might well turn out that the reasons for such vehement opposition from US politicians, and only tepid (at best) support for it among other major powers, have far more to do with their own geostrategic interests than with protecting Israel.

The report, written by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, has caused uproar in Israel and the US for its alleged bias against Israel and avoidance of serious criticism of Hamas. The condemnation, House Resolution 867, passed by a 344-36 vote.

Before the vote on the resolution, Goldstone sent a letter to members of Congress refuting most of the allegations contained in it. But his rebuttal did not lead to substantive changes in the report’s accusations and apparently had no effect on the vote.

Given the way in which opposition to the report unfolded it would be easy to conclude that this is merely another case of the vaunted Israel lobby shutting down any debate over Israel’s actions in the Occupied Territories.

Yet while Israel’s supporters no doubt took the lead in pushing the resolution, there is a back story to this drama that has likely played an equally, if not more important, role in the firestorm it has generated.

Why would the House go so far out of its way to stamp out even the consideration of war crimes accusations against Israel? And why would Barack Obama, the US president, have pressured Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, not to push the report in the UN when he had to know that such actions would cost Abbas most of his little remaining credibility among Palestinians?

Accessory to war crimes

There are two reasons for this.

Firstly, if Israel is guilty of committing systematic war crimes across Gaza and the West Bank, then the US, which supported, funded and armed Israel during the war, is an accessory to those crimes.

Goldstone explains in no uncertain terms that Gaza was not an aberration in terms of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Rather, it marked not only a continuation of Israel’s behaviour during the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, but “highlights a common thread of the interaction between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians which emerged clearly also in many cases discussed in other parts of the report.

It referenced continuous and systematic abuse, outrages on personal dignity, humiliating and degrading treatment contrary to fundamental principles of international humanitarian law and human rights law”.

“The Mission concludes that the treatment of these civilians constitutes the infliction of a collective penalty on those persons and amounts to measures of intimidation and terror. Such acts are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and constitute a war crime,” the report says.

Put simply, if there is blood on Israel’s hands, than it is has dripped all over America’s shirt.

Israel could not and would not have engaged in the level of wholesale destruction of Gaza painstakingly catalogued in the report without the support of the outgoing Bush administration, and acquiescence of the incoming Obama administration.

Israeli narrative challenged

Not only that, but on the same day the report was released the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel’s military leadership is preparing the country for yet another invasion of Gaza in the near future.

It is not clear how much of Gaza is left to be destroyed, but the report’s detailed discussion of Israel’s attacks on innumerable homes, mosques, schools, hospitals and other civilian facilities show what lengths Israel will go to to punish Gazans, and Palestinians more broadly.

There is also the larger context of the peace negotiations. If Israel can be guilty of humanitarian crimes at this level, then it puts the entire Israeli narrative about the occupation - that it is ultimately about preserving the country’s security - into question.

In fact, the report declares precisely this, in paragraph 1674, when it argues that the Gaza invasion “cannot be understood and assessed in isolation from developments prior and subsequent to it. The operation fits into a continuum of policies aimed at pursuing Israel’s political objectives with regard to Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole”.

Almost everyone outside the US, including in Israel, understands that the occupation has always been about settlement, not security, since Israel could have militarily occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 indefinitely without establishing a single settlement, and could withdraw from all its settlements tomorrow and maintain a military occupation until it felt secure enough to turn the territory over to Palestinians.

As famed general Moshe Dayan once put it, the settlements in the Occupied Territories are essential “not because they can ensure security better than the army, but because without them we cannot keep the army in those territories. Without them the IDF would be a foreign army ruling a foreign population”.

But the US remains heavily invested in maintaining this security narrative; both because it is the core of the strategic alliance between the two countries with all the military, strategic and financial implications that come with it, and because, as with the Gaza invasion, the settlement enterprise could never have proceeded without US support, or at least acquiescence.

This dynamic continues to operate today, as the same day House Resolution 867 was passed, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, explained that the US preferred to return to peace talks even without a settlement freeze, despite the fact that not stopping settlement construction during negotiations has been deemed by former senior Israeli negotiators such as Moshe Ben Ami and Yossi Beilin as among the single biggest factors dooming the Oslo peace process.

The Obama administration refuses even to push the parameters painstakingly set by his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, before leaving office, to which both Israelis and Palestinians were very close to agreeing.

Alarming precedent

One has to wonder whether the US Middle East policy-making establishment, which is dominated by defence and security interests, is even interested in bringing about a speedy resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Beyond what the Goldstone report says about America’s role in Israel’s actions, the report holds a mirror up to US actions in its ‘war on terror’. In so doing it paints for US policy-makers and politicians a more frightening picture of a future in which all countries are held accountable for their actions.

Here it becomes clear that, as it has been for four decades, Israel is both the spear and the shield for the projection - and protection - of US power in the Middle East. It engages in activities the US cannot do openly, and it acts as the first line of defence when US interests might be attacked diplomatically.

In going after Israel, the report, however unintended, is going after the US, which has committed many of the same crimes (of which Israel is accused) in its occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps through its drone attacks, in Pakistan and other countries. This is the report’s true danger, and why - from the US perspective - its accusations against Israel cannot stand.

Specifically, the idea of treating a Western-allied state, Israel, and a resistance movement, Hamas, as equally capable of committing war crimes and being held accountable for them, sets an alarming precedent for the US as its engagement in Iraq stretches on indefinitely and deepens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Why not hold the US (or Pakistan, China, Russia, or India for that matter) to the same standards as we hold the Taliban, al-Qaeda, or opposition movements in Kashmir, Chechnya or Tibet? None of these powers would allow this to happen.

Universal jurisdiction

Moreover, the report condemns the “Dahiya doctrine,” which involved the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations.

Although claiming to work hard to protect civilians in the countries it is occupying, one of the primary complaints against the US by citizens of Afghanistan or Iraq is the frequent killing of civilians and destruction of infrastructure, particularly if it could be deemed to be “supporting infrastructure” for “terrorists”.

And when such abuses are committed, paragraph 121 of the report reminds the world that “international human rights law and humanitarian law require states to investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute allegations of serious violations by military personnel”.

This is an indirect stab at the US judicial system, which has so far failed to hold anyone but a few low-level soldiers accountable for the numerous abuses committed by the US in Iraq and the ‘war on terror’ more broadly.

Perhaps the most dangerous suggestion in this regard is the report’s call for applying “universal jurisdiction” to the conflict.

As paragraph 127 states: “In the context of increasing unwillingness on the part of Israel to open criminal investigations that comply with international standards, the mission supports the reliance on universal jurisdiction as an avenue for states to investigate violations of the grave breach [of the] provisions of the Geneva Conventions.”

There is no power that wants its officials or military and security personnel subject to prosecution by other countries.

Uncritical victimology

In this regard, it is not coincidental that the same day resolution 867 was passed an Italian court convicted 23 former CIA agents of participating in the illegal rendition of an Italian imam, who claims he was subsequently tortured in captivity.

Have US policy interests in the Middle East impacted their rejection of the report? [AFP]
In June, the Italian newspaper il Giornale published an interview with Robert Seldon Lady, the CIA’s Milan station chief, in which he admitted, “Of course it was an illegal operation. But that’s our job. We’re at war against terrorism”.

This is a crucial statement, for it reveals that the US establishment believes that in a ‘war on terror’, there are no legal limits to what it can do. And if Israel is condemned for the same attitude, this would vitiate America’s ability to take whatever actions it desires, however illegal, to pursue its interests.

Obama might not take such actions, but his successors might. And if another major terrorist attack were to occur on US soil, there is little doubt that the gloves would once again come off, whether Obama wanted to keep them on or not.

In such a situation, the psychology of uncritical victimology that characterised post-9/11 America will be crucial to enabling such policies to be (re)put in place.

As the report quotes an Israeli professor (paragraph 1703): “Israeli society’s problem is that because of the conflict, Israeli society feels itself to be a victim and to a large extent that’s justified and it’s very difficult for Israeli society to move and to feel that it can also see the other side and to understand that the other side is also a victim.” This problem is equally difficult for Americans to overcome.

Report’s historical imprint

Among the final coincidences accompanying the passage of resolution 867 was its release the day after Clinton held a high-profile meeting in Morocco to champion the country’s recent official promotion of democracy.

But in her celebration of the Moroccan example she neglected to mention that press freedoms, the core of any democratic system, are suffering increasing restrictions in the country. Freedom of speech or challenging the country’s political-economic elite remains heavily circumscribed, especially when it comes from the country’s principal Islamically motivated opposition movement.

Of course, Clinton cannot push too hard for democracy in the Muslim world; democratically-elected governments would not tolerate many of the US’ core policies in the region, from uncritical support for Israel to its own military and economic alliances and activities.

The day after her Morocco meeting, Clinton was in Egypt, meeting once again with the Egypt’s autocratic leader, Hosni Mubarak, with not a word about democracy.

Against such policy interests, it might well be that the Goldstone report will be relegated to history without being acted upon.

What few of its opponents understand is just how big an imprint this most exhaustive study of the Israeli occupation will leave.

It might not help Palestinians and Israelis achieve peace today, but future historians will likely look upon it as a crucial document in exposing the realities of the American dominated Middle Eastern system for the world to see.

Mark LeVine is currently Visiting Professor at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University, Sweden. His most recent books include Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books, 2009) and Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel-Palestine (Rowman Littlefield, 2008).

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Source: Al Jazeera

Djibouti forcibly repatriates 40 Somali asylum-seekers, UN reports

The United Nations refugee agency has voiced regret at Djibouti’s forced repatriation of 40 Somali asylum-seekers, including 13 women and children, who were rescued at sea by a Dutch ship in the Red Sea last month.

UN honours Nelson Mandela with International Day on 18 July

The United Nations has declared 18 July “Nelson Mandela International Day” in recognition of the former South African President’s contribution to the culture of peace and freedom.

John Allen Muhammad Executed in the State of Virginia

D.C. sniper Muhammad executed for 2002 attacks

By DENA POTTER, Associated Press Writer

JARRATT, Va. – John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind behind the sniper attacks that left 10 dead, was executed Tuesday night as relatives of the victims watched, reliving the killing spree that terrorized the Washington metro area for three weeks in October 2002.

He looked calm and stoic, but was twitching and blinking as the injections began, defiant to the end, refusing to utter any final words. Victims’ families sat behind glass while watching the execution, separated from the rest of the 27 witnesses.

“He died very peacefully, much more than most of his victims,” said Prince William County prosecutor Paul Ebert, who witnessed Muhammad die by injection at 9:11 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center, south of Richmond. Muhammad, dressed in a blue shirt, jeans and flip-flops, had no final statement.

Muhammad was executed for killing Dean Harold Meyers, who was shot in the head at a Manassas gas station during the three-week spree across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Nelson Rivera, whose wife, Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, was gunned down as she vacuumed her van at a Maryland gas station said when he watched Muhammad’s chest moving for the last time, he was glad.

“I feel better. I think I can breathe better and I’m happy he’s gone. Because he’s not going to hurt anyone else,” he said.

Dean’s brother, Bob Meyers, said watching the execution was a point of closure but that he was “overcome by the sadness that the whole situation generates in my heart.”

“Honestly it was surreal watching the life being sapped out of somebody intentionally was very different,” he said on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

J. Wyndal Gordon, one of Muhammad’s attorneys, described his client in his final hours as fearless and still insisting he was innocent.

“He will die with dignity — dignity to the point of defiance,” Gordon said.

The shootings terrorized the region, as victim after victim was shot down while doing everyday chores: going shopping, pumping gas, mowing the lawn. One child was shot while walking into his middle school.

People stayed indoors. Those who did go outside weaved as they walked or bobbed their heads to make themselves a less easy target.

The campaign of terror ended on Oct. 24, 2002, when police captured Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, as they slept at a Maryland rest stop in a car they had outfitted for a shooter to perch in its trunk without being detected. Malvo is serving a life prison term.

They also were suspected of fatal shootings in other states, including Louisiana, Alabama and Arizona.

The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Muhammad’s final appeal Monday and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine denied clemency Tuesday.
___

Associated Press Writer Steve Szkotak and Bob Lewis contributed to this report.

The Voice That Inspired Many Women in Zimbabwe

The voice that inspired many women

By Joyce Jenje Makwenda
Zimbabwe Herald

IN the olden days, women used stories as a way of educating children.

They had skills to tell relevant stories according to age, for instance, children’s stories were told through characters of animals because they knew that animals fascinated children.

We still find this tradition adapted to modern technology through films like Lion King, which borrowed the African story-telling method.

Sometimes women would talk affectionately to their children, through reference to the family’s totem; for example it could be a lion, crocodile, elephant etc and this could be followed by praise of that family.

Women were custodians of the values of their families, communities and society.

Women were also very good at getting information quicker than men were, and disseminating it to different appropriate groups.

This information could be news about bereavement, or about possible attack, or what is negatively referred to as gossip, which entails information and women have skills to pay attention of what they see and hear and as a result are always the first to get information.

When women came into the city they did not have the power they had, that of telling stories to children, educating and informing.

New storytellers called journalists, producers and complicated technology, replaced them and they got lost in the new order.

Women in the 1950s realised that if they wanted to remain as custodians of society they had to know how to use the media as a way of communicating.

Ambuya Miriam Mlambo (Ambuya Chiramba Kusakara), used the media to teach, tell stories and entertain children since 1956.

During that time, the children’s programme was broadcast from Zambia during the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland up to 1958, when it moved to the Harare (Salisbury) studios. “Zipper-a-di-do-da. Zipper-a-di-diday. Mayo Mayo what a wonderful . . . ” was a popular signature tune for a children’s programme produced and presented by Ambuya Mlambo.

She also presented a programme called “Children’s Corner”, on Radio One.

Women journalists like Baphelile Hove, Angeline Makwavarara, Mavis Moyo, Gladys Matema, and Canaan Jenje used the media in the 1950s to educate women who were trying to find their feet in the early urban set up, they also used the media to celebrate women’s achievements through home craft clubs.

They also used media to highlight the plight of women in the townships through different mediums.

Baphelile Hove became a radio producer in 1954.

“There were not many radios in those days. Women gathered in their Home Craft clubs at a centre to listen to radio programmes that were aired which had to do with women’s development. Unfortunately the Home Craft Club was banned, probably because it had become so powerful and the authorities felt threatened,” said Baphelile Hove in an interview that I had with her in 1993.

“I don’t know why it was banned, maybe we used to speak politics without realising.”

Baphelile Hove went to London in the 1950s and continued producing women’s programmes and sending them back home; she was driven by her sense of duty to educate women through the media.

Mavis Moyo was another of the trailblazers.

She started journalism as a part-timer in 1953, and became a regular correspondent for the African Daily News.

Children who came to school hungry and with torn clothes would disturb her having been in the teaching field for 13 years.

With knowledge that she had herself got from the media by reading magazines and listening to the BBC Women’s Half Hour, she realised the power that the media had, as through the media she could solve some of her problems or get the information she needed.

She started writing for some newspapers as a way of educating the community, unfortunately most of the women whom she was trying to target could not read or write.

This was frustrating to Mavis Moyo as her efforts were in vain. For her to reach a wider audience radio broadcasting became the answer.

“I realised that through radio women would be educated as long as they can hear they can learn something.”

Since 1959, Mavis Moyo has used the radio as a tool for change in its true sense.

Moyo believes that people in the media have a duty to critically look at the way society functions and especially at the position of women and to try to promote change and strengthen women’s aspirations.

She says women themselves have to be the main agents in changing their own subordinate status.

Women should be involved in important issues that impinge on their work.

Although she retired from broadcasting in 1994, she was one of the longest serving journalists in the country.

Mavis was the founding member of the Federation of African Media Women of Zimbabwe, and she established a communication system called Development Through Radio.

Angeline Makwavarara is the first black woman in the print media, she was a champion in many fields. She was also the first Permanent Secretary for Development of Women’s Affairs and was also first woman ambassador appointed after the attainment of independence.

Angeline got into journalism because of the problems that women faced in the townships. She also felt that because of women’s diversity they could gather news fast.

Angeline trained as a nurse in Durban after completing her secondary education at Nada Secondary School in Natal. Although nursing was the order of the day as there were not many choices, she says she has no regrets as the nursing profession influenced the rest of her life, being in contact with different people from different backgrounds made her understand the broader and complex issues of the society.

Angeline’s first community project of looking after women who had given birth and had no one to bring them food made her realise the importance of the media.

In an interview in 1999, she said: “During the 1950’s when I was staying in Mbare women would give birth and no one brought them any food except if they had relatives who brought food from home, but for those who did not have any relatives they would just starve.”

It was during this time that Angeline and other women came up with an idea of forming Batanai Women’s Club in order to organise food for the expectant women.

“We looked for people who could publicise the plight of the mothers through the radio and papers so that they could get more help.

“It was through the media that the municipal council started preparing food for the women.”

Having realised how powerful the media was Angeline began writing articles to the African Daily News advising and educating the public on how to prevent certain diseases and how to have them treated.

She was approached by the Daily News to be a fulltime staff writer and editor, but as she was on maternity leave and had preferred to raise her child on her own, she turned down the offer.

It was only after she had been assured that she could take the baby with her to work that she accepted the offer and she became the first black woman in the print media. “I used to go with the baby and her baby-sitter at the office as I felt my baby was safer with me.”

Mothering has been a stumbling block for many women to venture or to excel in a number of professions, but Angeline was to change all that.

Canaan Jenje was the second female print journalist. She worked for the Daily News. Before she became a journalist she was a teacher in her home area in Gwatemba and taught at Zishabeni and Mwele Schools and when she came to settle in the then Salisbury she worked as a secretary. Writing and stories had always fascinated her and in 1959 she joined the Daily News as editor/journalist.

Unfortunately when she left for maternity leave she could not go back to work as a journalist, but the short time that she was in journalism had an impact on those who were around her. She inspired my sister Josephine, my daughter Tandiwe and myself to take up journalism.

Canaan was my teacher when I was studying journalism and she is the one who encouraged me to take up the course as I had started writing without any formal training, but what she did not realise is that she had for many years trained me informally to be a journalist. It is through the stories that she told me that I came to understand about women’s lives, their struggles, their tribulations and their achievements. This shaped my perception as regards women.

The 1960s and 70s saw few women in the media industry.

Some of them were Shieka Khumalo, Jane Esau, Tandiwe Khumalo, Mandi Mundawarara and Jean Zulu.

Since 1980 women have made strides in the media industry; radio, television, print, and some have branched off into public relations, becoming spokespersons for the corporate world and international organisations.

However, many women did not end in those sectors, they went on to form organisations to advocate, and educate, women journalists and women in general about the use of the media as a voice.

Some of the women who have made notable achievements in the media are Sekai Holland (Hove), Busi Chindove, Musi Khumalo, Jennifer Makunike-Sibanda, Tsitsi Vera, Sarah Chiumbu, Millie Phiri, Tsitsi Mawarire, Josephine Zulu, Ropafadzo Mapimhidze, Alice Mutema, Dorcas Hove, Elizabeth Karonga, Susan Njanji-Matetakufa, Tendai Manzvanzvike and then came Hazvinei Sakarombe.

Hazvi as she is affectionately known, enjoys the road that was paved for her by the women, who came before her.

We celebrate early women journalists through young women like Hazvinei DJ Chilli (Woza Friday). She will liven up your Friday.

This is how F. Kadzere describes Hazvinei, ” . . . Unhindered, uninhibited.

Totally in your face. When she’s on the set of Woza Friday the 28-year-old Hazvi, a.k.a. DJ Chilli, takes it to a whole new level . . . “

We will continue to feature women in the media and celebrate their achievements. The history of women in film will also be celebrated in this column.

–Joyce Jenje Makwenda is a Researcher, Archivist, Writer and Producer. She can be contacted on: joycejenje@gmail.com

Ban calls on US to put full weight behind agreeing new climate change treaty

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged the United States to take a leading role in forging a new international pact to combat global warming, warning that the consequences of failure outweigh the cost of tackling climate change.

Ban calls on United States to put full weight behind agreeing new climate change treaty

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged the United States to take a leading role in forging a new international pact to combat global warming, warning that the consequences of failure outweigh the cost of tackling climate change.

Climate change study shows Earth is still absorbing carbon dioxide

The Earth has developed stores to absorb excessive levels of carbon dioxide, according to a study that challenges the conventional thinking on climate change.

By Louise Gray, Environment CorrespondentPublished: 12:01AM GMT 11 Nov 2009
The research, by Bristol University, suggests that despite rising emissions, the world is is still able to store a significant amount of greenhouse gases in oceans and forests.
According to the study, the Earth has continued to absorb more than half of the carbon dioxide pumped out by humans over the last 160 years.

This is despite emissions of CO2 increasing from two billion tonnes per year in 1850 to current levels of 35 billion tonnes per year.
Previously it was thought that the Earth’s capability to absorb CO2 would decrease as production booms, leading to an accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
But Wolfgang Knorr, author of the new study, found that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has remained just over 50 per cent, with only tiny fluctuations being recorded despite the massive hike in output.
He pointed out that his study relied entirely on empirical data, including historical records extracted from ice samples in the Antarctic, rather than speculative climate change models.
“Previous studies suggested that in the next ten years the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will accelerate because there is a lot less uptake by the Earth, there is no indication of this,” he said.
However scientists cautioned that the ability of the oceans and rainforests to absorb carbon dioxide in the future may collapse, leading to a massive increase in temperatures.
Another study released this week found the amount of CO2 released as a result of cutting down the rainforests could have been overestimated. The research by VU University in Amsterdam found emissions from deforestation could be as low as 12 per cent, rather than 20 per cent.
Also, research has found that marine plants in the Antarctic are fighting climate change by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere as the ice melts. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) found that blooms of phytoplankton are thriving in swathes of water left open by the melting of ice shelves and glaciers.
But Dr Wolfgang Knorr cautioned that the world should still be trying to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as part of any climate change deal decided in Copenhagen next month.
He pointed out that the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is still increasing, even though half is absorbed by the Earth. Also there are fears that the oceans and soil become saturated and are unable to absorb any more CO2 in the future.
“Like all studies of this kind, there are uncertainties in the data, so rather than relying on Nature to provide a free service, soaking up our waste carbon, we need to ascertain why the proportion being absorbed has not changed,” he said.

Green home makeover will cost up to £15,000, says climate watchdog chief

Larry Elliott, economics editor
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 November 2009 21.59 GMT
The head of Britain’s climate change watchdog predicted today that households will need to spend up to £15,000 on a full energy efficiency makeover if the government is to meet its ambitious targets for cutting carbon emissions.
Warning that Britain needs to step up its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases after picking all the “low-hanging fruit”, Adair Turner said radical steps would be needed for electricity generation, cars and homes.
Amid growing concern that next month’s Copenhagen climate change summit could end in bitter failure, the chairman of the government’s climate change commission warned against using the drop in emissions caused by the longest recession since the 1930s as an excuse to relax in the fight against climate change.
The government has pledged to cut carbon emissions by 34% from their 1990 levels by 2020 but slipped off course during the economic boom earlier this decade. “When we get the figures for 2008-09 we may look to be on target, but only because we have had a thumping recession,” Lord Turner said.
“There is a danger of the government saying “look, we are back on target”. We will be back on target for the worst possible reason.”
Turner said that the UK had made “pretty rapid progress” on cutting emissions during the “dash for gas” in the 1990s, but had not maintained the progress during this decade. Tough decisions were now needed because there were limits to improvements to the internal combustion engine and Britain was running out of “easy things” to do in the home.
“After home insulation and more efficient boilers, we now need more intrusive things – double glazing, cavity wall insulation, solid wall insulation.”
He added: “We need much more of a whole house approach – one-stop shops where people can get a total report on what they need to do to their homes. It may be expensive – between £10,000 and £15,000.”
The CCC believes that the cost of the scheme would be paid for by a combination of government subsidy and higher electricity bills.
Turner said there was a case for greater state intervention in helping to reduce carbon emissions from the motor industry. Arguing that there were “limits” to what markets could achieve, the CCC chairman said: “We need support for the initial wave of electric cars.”
The government has allocated £250m to hasten the arrival of electric cars but Turner said the CCC would like to see £800m of public money spent on setting up a network of charging points. “It’s chicken and egg. Motorists won’t buy the cars unless there are enough charging points; the government is reluctant to put in the charging points while there are no electric cars.”
Ministers have accepted the CCC’s recommendation that carbon emissions should be reduced by 80% from their 1990 levels by 2050, and the first three carbon budgets covering the period up to the early 2020s were made legally binding earlier this year. Turner said his organisation was now working on a tough fourth budget.
“The 2020s will have to see the radical decarbonisation of electricity, ” he said. “That means more renewables, a significant expansion of nuclear or carbon capture and storage plants.”
He warned ministers that they would need to contemplate curbs on the expansion of air travel unless there was a way of increasing the supply of biofuels without affecting the ability of countries to feed growing populations. The government has pledged that emissions from aviation will not be above 2005 levels in 2050 and the CCC will provide a range of options for aviation in a report next month.
Turner said experts should look at the possibility of using a financial services transaction tax to help poor countries develop low-carbon growth strategies. “Any tax would have to be agreed at the global level because it would be difficult to enforce in one country. That’s why people have tended to think that the proceeds should be used for global common goods, such as the environment.”
Power stations that do not have carbon capture and storage will be taken out of commission, Turner said.