UK climate change programme : memoranda relating to the inquiry submitted to the Committee / Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environment, Transport, and Regional Affairs Committee
Date:
1999
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: UK climate change programme : memoranda relating to the inquiry submitted to the Committee / Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    — integration of planning and regulatory regimes (e.g., local planning with regulation of electricity and requirements to use heat), reducing despoliation of the countryside with power lines. 11. What more needs to be done to integrate a concern for energy efficiency into professional training and practice in fields such as architecture, engineering and land-use planning? Much more, not only for the professionals, but also for the clients. At a planning level, it may require changes in how we deal with waste, e.g., opting for local solutions rather than using energy intensive sewerage systems. 12. How should considerations about energy efficiency enter into determinations of what represents the best practicable environmental option and into implementation of the EC Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control? The key lessons are: — include lots of processes in IPPC to get broad coverage; — include information on carbon efficiency [and equivalent units] in guidance notes; — broaden boundaries for “costs” in BAT appraisal; — enable and encourage the IPPC process to “force” change, including: — identifying promising sectors for development; — speculating and promoting consideration of future developments; — including conditions in authorisations requiring R&D into future solutions; — go beyond the authorisations towards more ambitious negotiated solutions. (There is also a link to fiscal incentives here.) 13. Where should lead responsibility lie for promoting energy efficiency, and are additional powers required? This will have to depend on the sector (e.g., IPPC has a role in key industrial situations, building regulations, transport, product design, planning regime). It also needs co-ordination. Moreover, because the task is to get each regulatory sector (e.g., EA, DTI, EEO) to make environmental considerations integral to their role, it may be better to co-ordinate activity and strengthen the resolve of the individual responsible regulatory body, so that each of them can address positively how their respective lobby or interest groups specifically deal with the environment. IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE 14. What measures should be taken in the UK in the European Union in other parts of the world in order to adapt to environmental changes that are inevitable as a consequence of higher concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? We must not give up on changing the direction of climate change, but positive action can be taken: — having a monitoring system to see precisely and accurately what environmental changes are occurring as a result of climate change; — strategies for meeting and reducing unnecessary water demand; — improving flood defence warning; — changing the approach to planning (with a view to use of floodplains especially); — reforestation. 15. Is the factor which effectively limits utilisation of fossil fuel reserves likely to be requirements to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, or the availability or distribution of reserves, or the relationship between the cost of exploiting those reserves and the cost of competing energy sources? How different are the respective limits on fossil fuel use likely to be imposed by these three constraints? Relationship between relative costs of exploitation and competing sources is most important now. The availability and distribution of reserves is important, but depends on relative costs. However availability is a