The true cost of your carbon footprint

BY Dr Mayer Hillman

Only the most diehard sceptics now doubt the need to tackle global warming. Averting catastrophic climate change doesn’t mean that Londoners have to reduce their standard of living, indeed it will create significant economic opportunities, but it does mean that we all have to change the way we live.

Just as global warming will affect all of us, so everyone has a role to play in cutting carbon emissions. Indeed, my recently published ‘London Climate Change Action Plan’ showed that almost 40 per cent of London’s carbon emissions come from energy use in the home.

But cutting emissions doesn’t need to be painful. In fact implementing the measures in the plan would save the average London household £300 a year on their fuel bills –as well as helping to protect our planet’s future.

That’s why I will soon be in a position to announce a London-wide offer of cut-price loft and cavity wall insulation, available to every home that can benefit from it, and totally free to those in receipt of benefits.

The legislative framework to help individuals reduce their carbon footprint is starting to emerge. The government’s draft Climate Change Bill will make Britain the first nation in the world to set legally enforceable targets to tackle climate.

I am encouraged by all of this, but we are going to have to go further. London’s targets, driven by the science, are much tougher than those adopted by the government and the EU.

That shouldn’t be a surprise, as cities have often been where innovative ideas can first take root and prosper. Globally, cities cause three quarters of carbon emissions, so we are a big part of the problem and the solution.

As the draft Climate Change Bill becomes law I would like to see the government consider the widespread introduction of carbon pricing and trading. It is crazy that our current economic system doesn’t include the cost of polluting the planet in the price of goods and services.

This needs to change, for example introducing personal carbon allowances so that those who cause the most pollution can choose to carry on in this way, but only if they buy the right to do so from those who create the least.

Most people want to help tackle climate change and would find that they could maintain or improve their standard of living and yet produce fewer carbon emissions. If they did, they would also start to make money from the ‘carbon credits’ they could sell to those who want to carry on polluting.

This principle of charging for those activities that lead to large carbon emissions is right. Carbon charges for frequent fliers would be entirely consistent with that approach and the debate we are now seeing on this issue is very welcome. The proposal set out by David Cameron would ensure that the annual family holiday was not taxed, nor the half of the population who do not travel by air. But frequent flyers would have to fully repay the damage done by carbon emissions from their flights.

This policy is correct but it should be applied consistently, which would mean backing the proposed new carbon charges for the congestion charge zone.

These will mean people driving zero emission cars like electric and hybrid vehicles will pay nothing, while other drivers pay £8 a day, but drivers of gas-guzzling cars such as many 4x4s will pay £25 a day.

I admit that I don’t get why people feel the need for great off-road vehicles in an urban setting. But whatever the personal choice involved, the emissions they produce affect everyone. It should be no more sociably acceptable to produce these excessive emissions than it is to dump rubbish in the street.

That doesn’t mean everyone has to drive an electric car. But if everyone buying a vehicle chose the most energy efficient model, emissions from private vehicles would be cut by a third.

As the Stern Report demonstrated, the costs of tackling climate change will be much higher in the future if we delay action now.

In light of the real evidence of the harm that climate change does to our planet, economy and wallets, I hope we can all agree that the time for words is over. Now is the time for action.