The second piece in the Daily Mail is of particular interest. From the quote by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, full of cliché and misrepresentation, it is clearly evident there are no justifications based on fact and evidence supporting the case against nudging home owners to improve their property.

The Government is investigating how they could alter stamp duty to drive home owners to take up energy efficiency measures when they buy a property. The proposal under consideration is to target those properties that are the worst with this measure. Properties such as those that fall into a band F or G on an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) are incredibly inefficient – they are the worst of the worst in terms of energy efficiency and they make up 20 per cent of the British housing stock – just under five-and-a-half million homes.

The suggested reforms to stamp duty are a tax – in part. There is not disagreement that this is a stick. It is also a significant carrot. Refunding of 1 per cent of the stamp duty levy for undertaking some relatively painless improvements to the property so it reaches a band E on an Energy Performance Certificate isn’t a particularly onerous burden on new homes owners who are likely to want to undertake some work on the property before they move in.

The Energy Saving Trust recently released their analysis into F and G rated properties. They have shown that a large majority of these F and G homes will cost under £3,000 to upgrade to a Band E. Under the Green Deal, there would be no upfront cost to the homeowner. They would benefit from the incentives, reduced running costs for their home and will have contributed towards reducing carbon emissions.

It has been obvious for many years that current incentives for improving the energy efficiency of existing homes have been ineffective in delivering especially in the absence of a coherent programme of delivery.

To achieve the legal targets for carbon reduction delivery of a substantial improvement of energy efficiency in the existing housing stock is required (chapter 3 of the committee on climate change 2nd progress report presents a fairly robust indication of the scale required to be achieved in the existing housing stock).

There are three choices ahead for the Government on driving uptake of energy efficiency in existing home to achieve the carbon budgets:

• They can incentivise property owners through a suite of financial measures designed to stimulate the market at various trigger points for retrofit from 2012 onwards;

• They can mandate a minimum standard of energy efficiency for all tenures from 2012 and ban the sale of a property that fails to meet this standard; or

• They can do nothing and see the Green Deal fail in the face of poor take-up.

The success of the DECC flagship programme is dependent on the introduction of incentives such as reforms to stamp duty and rebates on council tax. Climate change and energy secretary Chris Huhne and Gregory Barker, Minister of State at DECC, should be applauded for choosing to incentivise homeowners with a combination of carrots and sticks.

It would be all too easy for the Government to choose to do nothing in the face of a vocal minority; something which will only lead to the Green Deal failing.

Instead, it is heavily polluting industries (and the Conservative grassroots both sides of the pond it would seem) that will be celebrating after the New York Times reported today that the Whitehouse and Senate Democrats have given up on their (already minimal) efforts to pass a climate bill that would limit greenhouse gas emissions and incentivise a shift towards a clean energy economy.

The newspaper reports:

“The effort to advance a major climate change bill through the Senate this summer collapsed [on] Thursday even as President Obama signed into law another top Democratic priority – a bill to restore unemployment benefits for millions of Americans who have been out of work for six months or more.”

Democrat leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, is quoted saying:

“We know that we don’t have the votes.”

Grist has more detail, David Roberts describing the news as a “total and complete surrender” by the Democrats, highlighting:

“Not only will the (new) bill not contain any restrictions on greenhouse gases – not even a watered-down utility-only cap – it won’t even contain the two other key policies that would have moved clean energy forward: the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) and the energy efficiency standards.”

But in a must-read Rolling Stone article, out today, the magazine explains why, whilst White House officials are blaming the climate failure on Senate obstructionism, President Obama must also foot much of the blame.

The magazine says:

“Rather than press forward with a climate bill in the Senate last summer, after the House had passed landmark legislation to curb carbon pollution, the administration repeated many of the same mistakes it made in pushing for health care reform.

“It refused to lay out its own plan, allowing the Senate to bicker endlessly over the details. It pursued a ‘stealth strategy’ of backroom negotiations, supporting huge new subsidies to win over big polluters.

“It allowed opponents to use scare phrases like “cap and tax” to hijack public debate. And most galling of all, it has failed to use the gravest environmental disaster in the nation’s history to push through a climate bill – to argue that fossil-fuel polluters should pay for the damage they are doing to the atmosphere, just as BP will be forced to pay for the damage it has done to the Gulf.”

Indeed, many campaigners and political insiders have not been able to understand why Obama didn’t seize on the BP oil spill to make the case for clean energy, and why the President failed to take a personal lead on something he used to describe as a top priority for his administration.

As Rolling Stone reports:

“Handled correctly, the BP spill should have been to climate legislation what September 11th was to the Patriot Act, or the financial collapse was to the bank bailout. Disasters drive sweeping legislation, and precedent was on the side of a great leap forward in environmental progress.

“In 1969, an oil spill in Santa Barbara, California – of only 100,000 barrels, less than the two-day output of the BP gusher – prompted Richard Nixon to create the EPA and sign the Clean Air Act. But the Obama administration let the opportunity slip away.”

Indeed, some of Obama’s biggest allies have increasingly vented their frustration publicly. John Podesta – the director of the Centre for American Progress – recently put his name to an open letter to the Whitehouse from America’s leading green groups, which stated:

“With the window of opportunity quickly closing, nothing less than your direct personal involvement, and that of senior administration officials, can secure America’s clean energy future.

“We strongly urge you to produce a bill, in conjunction with key Senators, that responds to the catastrophe in the Gulf, cuts oil use, and limits carbon pollution while maintaining current health and other key legal protections. We further urge you to work with the Senate to bring that bill to the floor for passage before the August recess.

“White House leadership is the only path we see to success, just as your direct leadership was critical in the passage of the recovery plan, health care reform, and other administration successes.”

Rolling Stone summarises the starkness of the situation like this:

“It has come to this: The best legislation we can hope for is the same climate policy that George W Bush promoted during the 2000 campaign. Even worse, the “utilities first” approach could wind up stripping the EPA of its newfound authority to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.”

After noting that of course those must to blame for the failure of this bill are pro-pollution ideologues and the media, the world’s most influential climate blogger, Joe Romm, has pointed the blame at Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod – Obama’s closest White House advisers.

Romm has rightly written in Salon that:

“Obama’s legacy – and indeed the legacy of all 21st century presidents, starting with George W Bush – will be determined primarily by whether we avert catastrophic climate change. If not, then Obama – and all of us – will be seen as a failure, and rightfully so.”

Some final words from Grist’s David Roberts:

“It’s a sad, corrupt state of affairs this country finds itself in. I wish I had some hopeful words to offer. But at this point, American government appears to be broken. And our children and grandchildren will suffer for it.”

Sadly the news comes as Australia’s Labour Party – severely damaged by Kevin Rudd’s failure to pass promised climate reforms last year – has announced a very weak new climate policy. There’s more on that from Australia’s Climate Institute here.

So you might be surprised (or not – if you already doubted the credibility of his sources) to learn that Anthony Watts’ latest source of information is none other than the British National Party – yes, those known to the rest of us as the British Nazi Party.

Anthony Watts blogged today at 15.30 GMT about how “climate scepticism could become a criminal offence in UK” – and his source? BNP leader, Nick Griffin. Unsurprisingly, by 16.11, the page had disappeared. No doubt, after one of his friends in the UK pointed out it doesn’t look great when you post Nazi propaganda on your blog and twitter feed.

But Left Foot Forward caught screen grabs here, here – and here.

For those outside the UK, you may be interested to know Nick Griffin was convicted of criminal charges after inciting racial hatred with statements like this:

“I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the world is flat.”

This comes hot on the heels of Richard North’s questionable blogs. As George Monbiot posted for The Guardian, about the Conservative climate denial blogger, Richard North, who was the one who manufactured the ‘Amazongate’ story.

Under the heading “Liar, liar!”, North ponders whether lying “is an in-built part of human nature”. He then goes on to say the following:

“What would be really interesting in this respect would be an examination of cultural attitudes to lying – why, for instance, Indians such as Rajendra Pachauri are practiced liars and why others find it difficult to accept that they are being lied to, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence.”

In the comment thread, someone calling himself bennyboy writes:

“Anything east of dover, not to be trusted!”

North then responds:

“There are a lot of Kermits to the west of Dover … to say nothing of the Dagos and sundry others. These are to be trusted?”

It reports:

The scientists were exonerated this month by an independent inquiry but groups funded by Exxon have continued to lambast them. The Media Research Centre, which received $50,000 from Exxon, called the inquiry a “whitewash” and condemned “climate alarmism”.

The paper adds:

Some of Exxon’s largest donations were to groups that lobbied against a global deal on emissions being reached at the climate summit last December in Copenhagen.

This is not the first time Exxon have been caught using dirty tricks to smear climate science and climate scientists. As The Times remind us today:

In 2002 it was revealed that Exxon sent a memorandum to the Bush White House to call for the removal of Robert Watson, the atmospheric scientist who was the first chair of the IPCC. The Bush administration did subsequently lobby for Dr Watson to be replaced, which he was.

Later, in 2006, the prestigious Royal Society told Exxon to stop funding climate denial groups.

Also in their editorial today, The Times says:

The IPCC assessment reports are made available for comment in an open review process to which anyone may contribute. They attract scientists of the highest calibre and list of scientific bodies that endorse their findings should give pause to anyone whose expertise in this issue is lacking.

The IPCC is, however, a skeletal organisation… this is a global authority operating out of a broom cupboard. There is, therefore, a serious question if the huge weight of scientific opinion, on the one hand, is ranged against the huge weight of corporate funding on the other.

This exposé comes after NASA reported that this year is very likely going to be the hottest on record, and comes after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) said that last month was the fourth month in a row of record global temperatures, and that the ten warmest years on record have all been since 1995.

The Times report follows an editorial in the New York Times describing “the debunking of climategate”. It also comes after the retraction of both the “Amazongate” story and the “Africagate” story, and follows news that climate denial websites have seen their readership drop significantly. And as Left Foot Forward has already reported, public concern about climate change – both in the UK and the US – remains very high.

Even the right-wing Canadian National Post newspaper, which has championed climate sceptic arguments in recent years, now says:

Most climate-change deniers (or “skeptics,” or whatever term one prefers) tend to inhabit militantly right-wing blogs and other Internet echo chambers populated entirely by other deniers.

Their leader editorial concludes: “Global warming deniers are a liability to the Conservative cause”, and warns that “the (Conservative) movement will come to be defined – and discredited – by its noisiest cranks and conspiracists.” (This is something I wrote about last year for the Independent on Sunday, here.)

On the cutting of support for green industries, Mr Miliband writes:

“On 5 July you announced support for UK offshore wind technology. But a week later you announced you are slashing funding for new projects by a third. You have also refused to support Labour’s £60m competition for ports which is vital to attracting major offshore wind companies to Britain.

“This leaves your policy on renewables in complete chaos. You give with one hand but take with the other. We are the world leader in offshore wind thanks to Labour, but this vital industry needs support.

“Last week you also announced that the Carbon Trust will receive a huge cut in funding for low carbon technology and business support. You have called for a clean energy revolution but we need British business to be at the forefront of this revolution. Cutting support for clean energy projects is a disaster for British business.

“The test of your green credentials is whether you can provide proper support to a valuable British industry which the market would otherwise not back.”

And on green jobs, he adds:

“Labour’s policies helped to attract four of the world’s major wind turbine manufacturers to locate in this country. Toyota and Nissan are building the first European hybrid and all-electric car and electric vehicle battery manufacturing plants here.

“We assisted some of Britain’s most dynamic home-grown low carbon businesses – from nuclear engineering to cable manufacture, from marine energy technology to aerospace. Under our proposals we anticipated that an additional 400,000 jobs in the low carbon sector would be created by 2015, taking the total figure to well over 1.2 million. Do you have a target – and if not, why not?

“I welcome the fact you are pushing for tough emissions cuts on a global level but your actions at home actions including scrapping the loan to Sheffield Forgemasters completely undermine your case. The government is behaving exactly like the banks it likes to criticise for favouring finance over industry.

“You claimed to be the ‘greenest government ever’ but so far you are turning your back on green jobs and green industry.  I urge to stand up to the free-market zealots and keep our plans for an active government to shift our economy towards growth where the planet no longer pays the price.”

He concludes by stating that if Mr Huhne thinks again, he will have his support.

Meanwhile, also yesterday, the Treasury announced it was shelving the green investment plan which would see some state assets sold to generate money for clean energy funds.

And today the Financial Times reports that the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has made a further cut of £85 million – including £34m that would have gone to clean energy business programmes.

In what appears to be a cynical ploy, the government have announced the cuts just a few days before their independent advisers on how to build a low carbon economy, the Committee on Climate Change, are expected to call for clean energy funding to be maintained or increased.

As the FT reports:

“The £85m cuts… will fall as the Climate Change Committee, the statutory body that advises on emissions, prepares to report that funding levels for business support should be safeguarded.”

The Department have made the following cuts today:

• The Carbon Trust will receive a £12.6 million cut to this year’s grant for low carbon technology and business support funding;

• £6.1 million from “programme budgets within DECC”;

• £4.7 million from “cancelling the final funding rounds of the Bio-Energy Capital Grants Scheme and the Bio-Energy Infrastructure Scheme”;

• The department will cut £1 million from funding for development of deep geothermal energy generation;

• They have cut £3 million from the Offshore Wind Capital Grants Scheme;

• They will close the Energy Saving Trust technology trials, cutting £700,000 from the £3 million pound programme; and

• They will reducing the scope of the Central Government Low Carbon Technology Programme by cutting £2.9 million.

Responding, the executive director of Greenpeace UK John Sauven said:

“Cameron’s promises of this Government being the greenest ever are beginning to crumble in the light of the Department of Energy and Climate Change cuts.

“We have the opportunity to grasp the industries of tomorrow in renewable energy, electric vehicles and energy-efficient business but we need Government action not words.”

And the shadow climate change and energy secretary Ed Miliband said:

“The government is cutting support for green jobs and green industries at exactly the time we need it most. They have no plan for economic growth, just cuts.

“On the one hand Chris Huhne calls for a clean energy revolution but with the other he is taking away vital support that Labour delivered for green jobs and green industry.

“On the one hand they call for tough carbon emissions targets but with the other they take away the means to achieve these targets.

“Climate change is the ultimate market failure and requires active government to shift our economy towards growth where the planet no longer pays the price. Instead this coalition have turned their backs on green industry. They have shown their true colours today.”

Also today, writing in The Independent, award winning columnist Johann Hari writes a devastating critique of Cameron’s green record so far, concluding:

“Yes, David Cameron hugged the huskies in opposition. But as soon as he got into government, he walked them into the Downing Street garden, and shot them in the head.”

“How we as a society use what we have learned from climate science could define our generation.”

Dr. James McCarthy, a professor of biological oceanography at Harvard University, Dr. Lisa Graumlich, the dean of the College of the Environment at the University of Washington, Dr. Chris Field, the director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science, and Dr. James Hurrell, a senior scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research co-authored the article.

Together they write:

“Right now, our nation – and the world – are at a crossroads. Yet we seem stalled – despite an increasingly clear picture of what human-induced global warming is doing to our planet.”

Their warning comes after the New York Times this week ran an editorial titled “A climate change corrective”, in response to what the newspaper calls the “debunking of climategate”, and it opened with this line.

“Perhaps now we can put the manufactured controversy known as Climategate behind us and turn to the task of actually doing something about global warming.”

This followed an online article from the BBC’s Richard Black, which began:

“It’s beginning to look like a pattern. An apparent scandal is unveiled that threatens to rock climate science to its very core, a scandal that usually ends in the suffix ‘-gate’. Himalaya, Amazon, and Climate itself are just three of the stems that have borne the suffix in recent months.

“Sections of the blogosphere then erupt with claims of deception, malpractice, political machinations and even fraud.

“Later, a more sober analysis by some body of learned men and women tends to turn that view on its head, concluding – in summary – that while there may be lessons to be learned, the science of human-induced climate change is not rotten at its core – in fact, it is in pretty good health.”

As Left Foot Forward already reported, the so-called ‘Amazongate’ story was retracted. The so-called ‘Africagate’ story was also retracted. The IPCC was vindicated in its warnings about Dutch sea levels. And the Muir Russell inquiry exonerated the scientists at the centre of the ‘climategate’ controversy of any dishonesty or manipulation of data.

To return to the words of the leading American scientists, “the urgent need to act cannot be overstated” – and to put behind us what another top scientist, Raymond Bradley, the director of the Climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts, has described as:

“A shameful chapter in the history of news reporting.”

Herds of activists dressed as cows infiltrated the capital’s morning commute today to mark a new Friends of the Earth drive for rainforest-free food. 

The launch of the MOOvement takes place on the same day as two key speeches by DEFRA Minister Caroline Spelman on biodiversity loss and food production.  But Friends of the Earth points out that, when it comes to food and farming, the Government is ignoring the meatiest issue of all – the massive environmental hoofprint of the UK’s factory farms. 
 
Earlier this month, Labour MP Robert Flello wrote for Left Foot Forward on the need to fix the food chain and prevent further rainforest destruction:

“I was surprised to find out that it is not just planes, cars and factories that pump polluting emissions into the air – surprisingly the meat and dairy industry produces around 18 per cent of the world’s climate-changing gases. And when I learned from Friends of the Earth that a hidden chain links animals in British factory farms to rainforest destruction in South America, I decided my bill should do something about it…

“If current trends continue, soy farming and cattle ranching alone will destroy 40 per cent of the Amazon Rainforest by 2050. But soy plantations in South America are dependent on, and driven by, factory farming in the UK and Europe – if we demand less soy it will help to protect rainforests and wildlife, and prevent dangerous climate change.

“My Bill aims to reduce British meat and dairy factory farms’ dependence on South American animal feed, by changing the way we produce meat so it doesn’t have such a damaging impact. I’m advocating Government support for fair and planet-friendly farming, instead of spending more than £700 million of taxpayers’ money each year to prop up intensive factory farms.”

People can ask their MPs to back the recently tabled Sustainable Livestock Bill at www.jointheMOOvement.com  – and you can view more pictures of today’s event on Flickr.

But Left Foot Forward recalls that in opposition, in a speech to civil society, Mr Hague said:

“Climate change is not simply an environmental and development concern but an urgent foreign and national security concern. I will outline how we will shape Conservative foreign policy to meet this challenge and re-emphasise that it will be one of the top priorities of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and new National Security Council we plan to establish…

“Under a Conservative government climate change will be one of the major guiding influences on our foreign policy in a similar manner to our domestic policy… The FCO has done a great deal of good work in climate diplomacy in recent years and I intend to ensure that it has the resources and high-level support to continue.”

David Miliband has now picked up on what’s happening here, accusing his opposite number of a “policy u-turn” in a blog in which he explains what the fund was used for, writing:

“The Low Carbon High Growth Fund, which I created at the Foreign Office while in Government, had a relatively small budget in spending terms – £14.4 million – but had a global reach…

“We helped create a low-carbon zone in Jilin City in China – a project the Chinese Government are now taking forward, using their resources to lower emissions after intervention from Britain. In Brazil the Government launched a National Plan on climate change with domestic targets, and recognised the impact of our intervention in forming that policy.

“This programme was never about funding other countries’ climate programmes, but using some resources to put British expertise together with other Governments, and helping to bring down carbon emissions. It also brings economic advantages back to Britain, and helps to develop our country as a centre for green growth.”

Left Foot Forward agreed with Mr Hague when he said in a different speech last year that:

“There are two central challenges which are immense in their scope… ‘the alarming features of these two threats are not only that they are new, and not only that their consequences are unknowable, but also that they are almost certainly not reversible once they have happened’.

“I am of course talking about nuclear proliferation and climate change and strongly believe that they are the two biggest threats to humanity.”

Climate policy is now so bound up with our policy on trade, investment and security; it makes sense for it to be even more central to our foreign policy than ever. As Copenhagen illustrated, securing positive international action in the new multi-polar geopolitical context, with its larger number of strategic actors and alliances, requires climate diplomacy to be central to the work of the Foreign Office.

Going forward from Copenhagen, a smarter political strategy to influence other countries and win their support for ambitious climate policy will need to be backed up by our diplomatic machinery. For smart political intelligence on critical countries, and the formation of new international alliances, climate progress needs an engaged FCO.

The region’s reservoirs are “significantly” lower than they should be following the driest start to a year since 1929. The North West’s water stock is particularly hard hit because the region has fewer natural aquifiers than other parts of England and relies on reservoirs, where evaporation is a problem.

The restriction is – so far – localised, but persistent dry spells through the summer may see other regions become water-stressed too. Although barely enforceable (unless your neighbour snitches on you) the ban will serve to focus attention on how we use our water resources. A hosepipe uses as much water in an hour as a family of four would use in a day. Meanwhile, a sprinkler left running overnight uses as much water as a family of four would use in a week.

The Consumer Council for Water, the quango which represents “the interests of water consumers”, claims that 80 per cent of us are “prepared to accept restrictions such as hosepipe bans – as long as water companies can demonstrate that they have done all they can to effectively manage water supplies”. Alas, making theoretical sacrifices and real ones will depend on who’s shrubbery is wilting.

But the entire industry is struggling to cope with bigger issues. Front of the queue is climate change, which is presenting the industry with the practical problem of coping with wetter winters, hotter, drier summers and more flash flooding. Our current water and wastewater infrastructure is geared towards more conventional weather patterns with steady, moderate rainfall. It is simply not modelled for the abnormal weather we are starting to see with greater frequency.

And there is growing concern that water industry regulation is inadequate to meet these future challenges. A recent conference held by the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) found 87 per cent of delegates supported a “comprehensive review of the financial regulation of water”, arguing that the current framework “can encourage short-term efficiency savings at the potential cost of ensuring that infrastructure is maintained to meet future requirements”.

The economic regulator of the industry, the Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) is responsible for setting customer bills and agreeing the network investments that companies can make. It manages this through its Periodic Review of water prices which sets customer bills in five-yearly blocks. Meanwhile, companies are obliged to maintain a 25-year outlook through their water resource management plans.

The current Price Review settlement demands customers’ bills fall by £3 to an average of £340 a year by 2015. Not everyone is happy, with some investors warning that Ofwat’s ‘Robin Hood’ pricing decisions will make water company stocks less attractive, hampering their ability to raise future capital in this investment-intensive industry.

In managing water resources the industry has a huge job trying to convince people to “use water wisely”, and there are real concerns this is a losing battle, especially with the twee and patronising marketing that the industry opts for, which runs headlong into consumers’ own logic.

Some people simply take the view that they are buying a product from a private company and will use as much of it as they please. Despite privatisation taking place two decades ago, the industry still appeals to public sector arguments for customers to ‘do the right thing’ for the common good.

But given the private water companies’ historically dismal record on leakage, many customers simply point out that they should fix their leaking pipes if they want to save water; in United Utilities’ case, it lost a staggering 462 million litres a day last year.

In addition, UU faces the weary prospect of having to explain to its baffled customers why a country that sees so much rain can possibly be short of water. This follows a bruising political battle last year with local charities and scout groups about the imposition of a so-called ‘rain tax’ as the company sought to levy controversial surface water drainage charges based on the footprint of a customer’s premises.

So the industry is faced with a knotty series of problems with big implications for future water management as it grapples with climate change, population growth and the ‘wrong type’ of rain. It will be interesting to see how many Lancashire gardeners are prosecuted for lubricating their hydrangeas. Most will simply do what they always do during drought restrictions. Water their gardens at night.