Budget shows green talk is not backed up with commitments
Scientists’ call for urgent action on climate change is not being heeded, says Mario Du Preez
The annual presentation of the Budget by the chancellor of the exchequer is eagerly anticipated by most. Analysts, political commentators, market watchers and the average person in the street wonder what the paperwork in Chancellor Phil’s little red briefcase means for them. It reveals the Government’s spending and revenue raising plans for the next year. In between all the numbers and financial rhetoric, one is able to discern some of the government’s policy stances and trajectories.
Drafting the budget is a balancing act, regardless of which political party is preparing and presenting it. This means there will always be ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. It is impossible to please everyone – this is especially true when one considers that the governing party’s underlying political ideals and ideology are invariable strongly reflected by the spending and taxation decisions. And one should not be surprised to know that special interests and hardcore lobbying do factor into these decisions.
Despite the enduring nature of partisan-type budgets, some things that are of national interest deserve a special dispensation in any government’s budget regardless of their particular ideological persuasions.
Many deserving plights come to mind but one issue stands out above all the rest: climate change. By now, most people have had a chance to digest the chancellor’s musings. As usual, some are quite dismayed whilst others are beaming. Putting on my environmentalist hat, I, for one, was not too impressed with the content of Mr Hammond’s speech.
For a start, fiscal Phil did not once mention climate change in his budget speech. What makes this omission even more startling is the fact that the United Nation’s Independent Panel on Climate change (IPCC) had issued a dire warning in a report about the impending climate crisis facing the world a few weeks before the Budget was presented in parliament. The report was also unequivocal in its call for global action.
In other words, all of us have to do more. In many cases, we can only do more if more money is made available. Unfortunately, in this Budget, spending on housing and the environment has stagnated – 0% growth – at £32bn. A reminder: housing and environment refers to waste management and general protection of the environment and all housing and community amenities including street lighting (italics are mine). Mr Hammond’s £60m pledge to plant trees (a welcome injection) was sadly dwarfed by the £30bn road spending plan – this sounds like one step forward and 500 steps back. Road spending translates into building new roads and/or widening existing ones, which will attract more traffic and, thus, cause higher carbon emissions. The view that the planting of trees should be seen as a countermeasure to increased emissions due to road building and improvement needs to be interrogated.
Foremost on my mind is whether the £60m pledge will lead to the planting of enough trees to mitigate rising carbon emissions due to increased road traffic. Somehow, I doubt it. What’s more, the duty on petrol and diesel has been frozen for the ninth consecutive year. It is safe to argue that an increase in this levy would serve as a disincentive to the use of carbon-emitting motor vehicles. In another disheartening move, Mr Hammond substituted an annual £2bn worth of loans (used primarily to encourage the production and use of clean energy) issued by the European Investment Bank with a fund which is approximately £200m. Moreover, ongoing uncertainty surrounding the policies which govern the production of and investment in renewable energy was sharply contrasted by a £3bn tax concession to the oil and gas industry.
On the revenue side, a new tax on the manufacture and import of plastic packaging that contains less than 30% recycled plastic, is to be introduced from April 2022. Apparently, this measure is designed to incentivise manufacturers to make more sustainable packaging, avoid the use of virgin plastic (which is cheaper) and to address single-use plastics waste. (Only 2% of all plastic packaging is currently made from recycled plastic.) A great initiative, one would think. I understand that producers must be given time to adapt to the new tax legislation but all indications are that action must be taken now and that a three-year reprieve may be too long. Unfortunately, the “latte tax” on disposable coffee cups was rejected by Mr Hammond. This rejection comes in the face of in excess of 2.5bn coffee cups being used annually in the UK, of which only 1% is recycled. It appears the IPCC’s call for us to do more re the environment and climate change had not reached Whitehall, at least as far as spending allocations and revenue collection plans are concerned. It appears Mr Hammond’s assertion that “we cannot secure our children’s future unless we secure the planet’s future” and Mrs May’s commitment to “leave the environment in a better state than we found it” can now safely be dismissed as mere words sans concomitant action.