Went on the end child poverty campaign's Keep the Promise march last Saturday. Marched along Whitehall to Trafalgar Square. The sun shone, whistles were blown, drums were drummed, speeches were made, and then Sophie Ellis-Bextor came on.
Both Eds were there, as well as James Purnell and Yvette Cooper, and my old friend, the Dad from Shameless, who needless to say showed no sign of recollecting he had ever set eyes on me before. Caught up with Ed M outside his new home, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (basically Defra with a sheet of A3 stuck over the gold plaque) and chatted about the Severn Barrage, about which he will no doubt very soon become an expert. I was a bit confused about the remit of his new department; turns out he will be doing the big picture climate change stuff, but Defra will still be handling issues like waste management, bins and recycling. Got to be a good move, setting up DECC, hasn't it? Speaking of energy issues, I've been invited to go onto the Rainbow Warrior soon, but only when it's docked. There's also some talk of being taken in a Greenpeace speedboat along the Thames, which would give me an opportunity to re-enact my 'solo dismount' star turn, last seen on my white-water rafting trip.
4 comments:
'Got to be a good move, setting up DECC, hasn't it?'
Yes, the new Dept of Energy and Climate Change is most welcome. As always though lets make assessments on what it actually can and does take action on. The challenges are many and are very large.
There's a DECC statement in half an hour or so in the Chamber. Can't reveal what is going to be said, but I think it might just prove that setting up DECC was a very good move indeed!
Surprised you have not updated us with the details after the statement Kerry. You choose to snipe at me via a post on another topic instead! Its definitely a move in the right direction as far increasing the target cut from 60% to 80% goes. Several other welcome moves too. Clearly what counts is what is done and what cuts are achieved in practice however and so this is the bottom line. Carbon dioxide missions are higher now than ten yrs ago despite Govt words of concern. Govt continues to say one thing but do another eg Green MEPs report to me that Ministers have done their best to
dramatically dilute and undermine the proposed EU climate legislation (EU
climate pact in crisis, Guardian, 15 October 2008)
Example of Ed Miliband's work to undermine EU tough action on climate change '...while British ministers say they support the plan, they are also trying to water down some of its key provisions. The energy and climate change secretary, the foreign secretary's brother, Ed Miliband, last week failed to get the rest of the EU to exempt the aviation sector from a central element of the climate change package - that which obliges Europe to obtain 20% of its energy mix from renewable sources by the 2020 deadline.'
(Guardian, 15 Oct)
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