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Zerocarbonbritain - new from CAT

Posted: 09/07/2007

Politicians from across Wales attended the Centre for Alternative Technology's Sustainable Science Symposium recently to investigate a new policy document. CAT's new report, zerocarbonbritain, shows how Britain could reduce its carbon emissions to almost zero within 20 years.

The report recommends a policy-driven plan for reducing Britain’s emissions to zero by 2027. It also explores the possible outcomes of these policies and looks at how our lives may have changed in 20 years time.

Using only existing and proven technologies, zerocarbonbritain integrates solutions to the intimately connected issues of climate change, energy security and global equity. Labour MP Nia Griffith and Plaid Cymru candidate Simon Thomas debated the document, Lembit Opik MP and Mick Bates AM also attended. All four politicians were very positive about CAT’s recommendations.

“This is exactly the sort of vision we should be putting forward,” Simon Thomas said. “It is a challenge to us to try to live up to it and try to implement what it contains.”

Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik said: “I salute the work of the Centre for Alternative Technology. This roadmap to a zero carbon Britain is truly ground-breaking, visionary and most importantly, do-able.”

Nia Griffith MP was also supportive of the document. “I’d like to congratulate the Centre for its forward thinking,” she said. “We need as much knowledge and expertise as possible to drive the agenda forward.

The report has been released nationally and will be presented to the All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group at the House of Commons.

Sir John Houghton, former Co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Director General of the UK Metrological Office said, “The authors of zerocarbonbritain present a time-scale for action that begins now. I commend their imagination (coupled with realism), their integrated view and their sense of urgency, as an inspiration to all who are grappling with the challenge that climate change is bringing to our world.”

The report recommends the adoption of Contraction & Convergence, the global framework for negotiations and management of climate change; administered on a national level, through a system of personal carbon permits (specifically Tradable Energy Quotas, TEQs) in absolute terms over the next 20 years.

Other presentations over the weekend included talks on rammed earth building, small wind turbines, pre-fabricated timber buildings, carbon offsetting and tidal barrages for generating electricity.

www.zerocarbonbritain.com

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