Perhaps unsurprisingly given events elsewhere in the world, the report of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) on reducing carbon emissions from transport, published last week, has generated little comment or coverage.
This is a pity because it is an excellent piece of work which goes some way to renewing one's faith in the democratic process. At the behest of the government, a cross-party group of MPs have considered vast quantities of evidence, weighed up innumerable facts, opinions and arguments and produced a report which, if it were used as the basis for government policy over the next decade, would set us well on the way to addressing the problem of global warming.
The report emphasises how little progress has been made to date: "Transport is the only sector of the UK economy in which carbon emissions were higher in 2004 than the baseline year of 1990, and the only sector in which emissions are projected to be higher in 2020 than in 1990." It criticises the government for acquiescing in the notion that any attempt to control carbon emissions would necessarily have negative economic consequences. By once again following the Bush line, New Labour demonstrates a frustrating lack of ambition in respect of reconciling the dual imperatives of maintaining a dynamic economy and addressing global warming.
Although the report recommends a carrot and stick approach, it recognises the complete failure of voluntary arrangements thus far, and therefore calls for some pretty big sticks to make air travel and car use more expensive and less attractive. It argues for wider differentials in road tax bands, so that the worst-polluting vehicles would attract an annual levy of £1,800 (compared with £215 currently). It urges the government either to reduce or to properly enforce the 70mph speed limit on motorways, suggesting that the wider social benefits of so doing would far outweigh the "trivial incursion on personal liberty" involved. It urges a fundamental rethink of the government's airport expansion policy, it suggests "the government has no excuses for not raising Air Passenger Duty", and it argues that it should increase taxes on domestic flights immediately.
It is encouraging that a parliamentary committee can produce recommendations which only a few years ago would have been dismissed as wholly unrealistic if suggested by environmental groups. Unsurprisingly it has won the full support of Friends of the Earth, which added: "Transport secretary Douglas Alexander must make tackling climate change his top priority. This needs a root-and-branch review of transport policy, starting with plans for airport expansion and road building. Tinkering around the edges is no longer enough to tackle the greatest threat the world faces."
But will it have any impact on policy or, more importantly, on the preparedness of individuals and big business to change their behaviour? The initial government reaction left much to be desired: Transport minister Stephen Ladyman fatalistically opined that people who have enough money to buy gas-guzzling vehicles are unlikely to be put off doing so even by substantial increases in road tax. Easyjet was typically populist in its rebuttal, suggesting that measures to make flying more expensive would only penalise poorer members of society.
These responses go to the nub of the matter. It's not just the rich with their big-engined cars, nor the less well-off with their unquenchable thirst for cheap air travel: everyone needs to change their behaviour. If we are to address global warming, we need to reduce carbon emissions from transport. This means less travel, or finding carbon-neutral alternative modes of transport. Neither of these is happening anything like quickly enough. People need to be persuaded of the need for immediate and effective action, and this requires changes in attitudes and understanding at a pace unprecedented in human history.
The only way to force such change is through legislation, but that legislation will not be enacted as long as such "radical" policies are viewed - quite correctly - as an electoral liability by the three main parties. The only solution, therefore, is to take politics out of the equation. We need high profile politicians from each of the major parties to get together - just as the lower profile members of the Environmental Audit Committee have done - and seriously engage with reality.
The three main parties must put aside their political differences for the sake of the greater good. I am not suggesting the formation of a national government, only that on the question of global warming, Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems should agree a common position which broadly echoes the findings and recommendations the EAC report.
The three party leaders, ministers and other front-benchers should then speak frequently, and with passion, on the gravity of the situation and the consequences of continued inaction. They should pull no punches in appealing to people's emotions, talking in graphic detail about the kind of world that our children and grandchildren are likely to be inhabiting fifty or a hundred years from now if we fail to take action. They should provide the kind of leadership that we require from politicians in times of crisis.
If such a political consensus could be created, not only would the requisite legislation pass quickly and easily through parliament, but no party would be subject to any loss of electoral support at the next election (with the possible exception of the Greens). Everybody, including those who argue that environmental and economic imperatives are irreconcilable would be forced to think again. People might not like it but they would have no choice but to accept it. In time, I suspect, they would acknowledge that for once, politicians were right and they were wrong.
Fantasy stuff perhaps, but global warming constitutes the single greatest threat to the survival of human civilisation, far greater than the historical threat of nuclear annihilation or the current threat from terrorism. Such a threat requires an unprecedented political response. The idea will not go down well with those who think our current democratic arrangements are adequate, nor with those for whom individual freedom must be protected at all costs. But if our elected representatives can find the courage to stand together and effectively address global warming they would be safeguarding the personal liberty of people for generations to come.
