Plastic Bag Ban For Coventry?

The city council might "ban" plastic bags from Coventry. It's a nice surprise. It's something I agree with. It's certainly do-able. It's ambitious.

As such, it's also perplexing, since other parts of their climate change strategy aren't as ambitious.

- the strategy doesn't address the planned long-term growth in emissions from Coventry Airport
- it does not have year-on-year targets to reduce our carbon emissions
- the changes that needs to occur are not "front loaded" -- we need to tackle the problem over the next 10 years, not the next 40 years, or we risk feedback effects
- the strategy retains the idea of incineration - the council has already ruled out ideas like pay-as-you-throw and congestion charging
- the strategy has an innovative idea -- "Eco-Streets" -- where people are encouraged to adopt sustainable modes of transport, housing and living. However, the strategy calls for two streets to begin with, and doesn't indicate how quickly this would be expanded. Considering there are 2000 streets in Coventry, shouldn't we aim for two eco-wards to begin with, rather than streets?

The council's proposal comes on the heels of the national Conservatives promising a "feed-in tariff" for renewable energy, if they come to power.

Such a tariff would be:

a duty on electricity companies to pay a guaranteed, long-term, premium price for electricity generated by renewable sources and exported to the National Grid.

Since enacting a feed-in tariff in 2000, Germany now generates 12 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources and has 240,000 people employed in the renewable energy sector.

The Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs select committee of MPs recently called for a feed-in tariff to be introduced to encourage the take-up of microgeneration technologies as part of a "Citizens Agenda" on climate change. The Government's own energy regulator, Ofgem, has specifically asked the government to look at how a feed-in tariff could work in the UK context.

It's a great first step. But, there needs to be much more investment in the technology to produce renewable energy, both small scale and large scale, so that the feed-in tariff will work.

The more that the Conservatives outline such policies, both locally and nationally, the more that the Green Party needs to emphasise how their policies still fall short, and our "other" policies on the local economy, public ownership, social policy.