Translation of latest post on Nick Bourne’s blog:
"Understandable angst and concern about the massive hikes in fuel prices shouldn’t obscure the need to continue to take green measures."
I’ve spotted a massive political opportunity for the Conservatives, but it isn’t very green.
"It is quite compatible to ensure that the tax on fuel is postponed for example, and some of the VAT is abated, whilst still concentrating on green efforts, for example, encourage homes to insulate and to adopt small scale devices like small turbines on houses or indeed solar panels (an area that has been much neglected in this country as compared to say Germany)."
We can be populist, cut taxes, encourage people to continue making profligate use of oil, and claim that we are still being green by transferring all the responsibility for taking action on climate change from the government to the electors (the German Conservatives have already spotted this one, and appear to be getting away with it).
"I think there is a great danger in people seeing there being one or other camp and I don’t think that is the case at all."
There is a serious danger that people might spot that what we are proposing is incompatible with what we’ve said previously, so we’re going to have to find a form of words which bridges the gap.
"I think it is quite feasible, indeed desirable, to do something on the price of fuel but at the same time press ahead with a green agenda."
We can win a lot of votes by cutting taxes and giving in to the roads lobby, but we need to sound as though we’re still serious about the environment.
"The Chancellor will have a £600m fuel windfall from extra VAT from domestic fuel alone, quite apart from the VAT windfall on petrol and deisel"
The windfall income which the government is getting from unexpectedly high fuel taxes might enable them to plug the gaps in their budget, and that would destroy a major part of our election strategy.
"It is quite possible to abate some of this tax but at the same time to press ahead with green energy measures."
We can promise tax cuts and win votes now, and people with more money in their pockets will forget about the environment.
"Indeed there are huge economic, social and environmental gains to be achieved by doing just this."
It can help us win the General Election.
“The government response of simply seeking to produce more North Sea oil is really a woefully inadequate response.”
Producing more North Sea oil will make very little difference, but I still wish we’d thought of it first.
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Fuelling Protest
Yesterday’s fuel protests by truckers brought to the forefront some key dichotomies in public attitudes, and drew out some interesting political responses as well. The situation raises a number of different issues at the same time.
Firstly, we all know that, whilst the world is not about to run out of oil (despite some of the more alarmist projections) neither is the supply unlimited. Demand is increasing as countries like China and India industrialise, and the cost of extraction is increasing as the most easily accessible supplies dry up. The result is economically inevitable – over a period, prices will rise. Current price levels may well be higher than they need to be, due to a combination of speculative markets, political instability in supplier countries, and supplier cartels; but the underlying trend is upwards.
Secondly, the more globalised and centralised the economy becomes, the more goods will be transported. (Supermarkets have fewer and larger distribution centres, for example, so the same goods are often transported from their source to the centre, and then out to the shops – often passing each other in opposite directions on the same stretch of motorway in the process.)
Thirdly, because road transport (measured by the direct cost to users, rather than the total cost to the community/ environment) is felt to be cheaper or more convenient than sea or rail, the road haulage industry has boomed. Businesses were established or expanded on the basis of entrepreneurial decisions by individuals, given their assessment of the costs and risks at the time.
Fourthly, because the industry has boomed so much, it now has more suppliers competing with each other than is economically viable. It’s a buyers’ market – if one haulier increases his prices to pass on increased costs, another will undercut him. This is economically suicidal for the businesses concerned in the medium to long term, but it keeps their trucks on the road in the short term. It is not, however, the government's problem in the first instance.
Fifthly, we all tell politicians that we care about the environment, and want to do more to protect it – until it starts to hurt. Then, we want someone else to pay the ‘green taxes’. Politicians know this, so while they say the right words about protecting the environment, they’re terrified to take serious action, since it would lose them elections.
Now, it’s not that I have no sympathy at all for the hauliers. Many of them are facing difficult decisions and potentially real hardship. But subsidising them, in the way they are demanding, to continue to operate in a way which is sustainable neither economically nor environmentally is surely not the right way forward. Businesses have, or should have, no automatic right to government assistance to enable them to continue to operate if their continued operation is wrong both economically and environmentally. (Am I alone in finding the Conservatives' support for the protests a little strange in this context?)
Rail transport already looks uneconomic as compared to road, despite its environmental benefits. If increasing oil prices force a re-evaluation of this, surely that’s a good thing rather then something to be avoided by subsidising hauliers? We also make far too little use of shipping as a means of bulk transportation around our coastline.
Their point about unfair foreign competition is the one strong point in their favour; but subsidising native businesses to bring their costs down is not the only way of addressing that issue. Playing fields can be levelled by adding to one side, not just by taking away from the other.
If public money is to be used to help them (and whatever anyone says, targeting tax cuts to help specific businesses is a way of funnelling public money into them), it is surely better that that money should be used to help move the transport industry as a whole onto a more sustainable basis instead.
Firstly, we all know that, whilst the world is not about to run out of oil (despite some of the more alarmist projections) neither is the supply unlimited. Demand is increasing as countries like China and India industrialise, and the cost of extraction is increasing as the most easily accessible supplies dry up. The result is economically inevitable – over a period, prices will rise. Current price levels may well be higher than they need to be, due to a combination of speculative markets, political instability in supplier countries, and supplier cartels; but the underlying trend is upwards.
Secondly, the more globalised and centralised the economy becomes, the more goods will be transported. (Supermarkets have fewer and larger distribution centres, for example, so the same goods are often transported from their source to the centre, and then out to the shops – often passing each other in opposite directions on the same stretch of motorway in the process.)
Thirdly, because road transport (measured by the direct cost to users, rather than the total cost to the community/ environment) is felt to be cheaper or more convenient than sea or rail, the road haulage industry has boomed. Businesses were established or expanded on the basis of entrepreneurial decisions by individuals, given their assessment of the costs and risks at the time.
Fourthly, because the industry has boomed so much, it now has more suppliers competing with each other than is economically viable. It’s a buyers’ market – if one haulier increases his prices to pass on increased costs, another will undercut him. This is economically suicidal for the businesses concerned in the medium to long term, but it keeps their trucks on the road in the short term. It is not, however, the government's problem in the first instance.
Fifthly, we all tell politicians that we care about the environment, and want to do more to protect it – until it starts to hurt. Then, we want someone else to pay the ‘green taxes’. Politicians know this, so while they say the right words about protecting the environment, they’re terrified to take serious action, since it would lose them elections.
Now, it’s not that I have no sympathy at all for the hauliers. Many of them are facing difficult decisions and potentially real hardship. But subsidising them, in the way they are demanding, to continue to operate in a way which is sustainable neither economically nor environmentally is surely not the right way forward. Businesses have, or should have, no automatic right to government assistance to enable them to continue to operate if their continued operation is wrong both economically and environmentally. (Am I alone in finding the Conservatives' support for the protests a little strange in this context?)
Rail transport already looks uneconomic as compared to road, despite its environmental benefits. If increasing oil prices force a re-evaluation of this, surely that’s a good thing rather then something to be avoided by subsidising hauliers? We also make far too little use of shipping as a means of bulk transportation around our coastline.
Their point about unfair foreign competition is the one strong point in their favour; but subsidising native businesses to bring their costs down is not the only way of addressing that issue. Playing fields can be levelled by adding to one side, not just by taking away from the other.
If public money is to be used to help them (and whatever anyone says, targeting tax cuts to help specific businesses is a way of funnelling public money into them), it is surely better that that money should be used to help move the transport industry as a whole onto a more sustainable basis instead.
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