COP21 has laid the foundation for the future

In the wake of the historic climate change agreement in Paris we have to ensure we build on this agreement. A low carbon future is not just about meeting targets. It offers so many win-win opportunities. It is essential that the Government resists the old tired siren voices of ‘business as usual.’

Business as usual leaves people in fuel poverty, with air pollution that produces 29,000 early deaths in the UK, with higher energy bills and lower standards of living. It leaves mountains of waste in our landfills and wastes the immense commercial opportunity that our cutting edge research could produce.

With the success of COP21 we can again look to the future. In that future your home is its own powerhouse. Battery technology means storage is no longer a problem. Solar energy and ground source energy means that being cold due to fuel poverty is as unthinkable as no running water is today. It is a smart home that regulates itself in accordance with your wishes. This is not a far off fantasy future. The technologies are either in place or in development.

Since April the Government has been moving in the opposite direction, driving us backwards. They have cancelled the zero carbon homes policy, got rid of regulations that allow local authorities to specify high environmental standards for developers, cut subsidies to solar power and encouraged the fossil fuel producers with a diminished burden of regulation.

The government appears to believe that affordable housing is incompatible with developing zero carbon housing but the technology is there. Both the BRE and Cardiff University have completed demonstration houses that export more power to the grid than they use. They are highly energy efficient constructions that offer the chance of making fuel poverty history, and it all falls within the normal budget for social housing of no more than 1000 per square foot. COP 21 gives the Government a chance to have a rethink. To go back to the drawing board and start building the houses that will lead us to a low carbon future.

It is not just housing, we must also farm differently.  We must really look after the soil which offers the potential to store much more carbon. Soil rich in organic matter also grows more food, absorbs more water, suffers less erosion and is not dependent on artificial fossil fuel based fertiliser. Despite all this the UK has had no soil strategy since the last one finished a couple of years ago.

It is right that the Paris Agreement addresses the role of the world’s forests for the first time, something notably missing from Kyoto and Copenhagen. The world’s tropical forests have a critical role in countering climate change and the UK can be proud of its contribution to the REDD+ programme, which helps forested nations restore millions of hectares of lost or degraded woodland. Again this is a win-win for our environment as these forests act as a giant carbon sinks, and we will be restoring habitats to so many species that have been driven to the edge of extinction by habitat loss and degradation.

The political momentum of COP21 must survive Treasury cynicism and shorter term political imperatives. We need long term certainty within a short-term democratic political system. Early next year the 5th carbon budget produced by the Climate Change Committee, offers a chance to highlight the practical measures the UK can take to get it back on track to meet its own targets. This Government now has the chance to build the UK into a world leading low carbon nation. I hope that they take it, so far their actions risk a far more troubling future.