Carbon Budget

Carbon Budget

by | Mar 31, 2009 | All Posts, Articles

Originally published in the March/April 2009 issue of Resurgence magazine

A PDF of the full illustrated article can be found here

Ensuring essential entitlements to energy for all whilst guaranteeing that the UK meets
its target of 80% emissions reduction by 2050.

In these times of climate emergency, peak oil, economic turmoil and biodiversity devastation we are told again and again that large-scale problems require large-scale solutions - that we must channel our efforts into bigger, better global agreements to address these challenges.

As a young man searching for my calling in life I was being led in this direction until I attended the 'Life After Oil' course at Schumacher College and heard David Fleming utter a sentence that brought me up short:

"Large scale problems do not require large-scale solutions

- they require small-scale solutions within a large-scale framework."

At the time this was a radical new concept to me, but the more I considered it the more obvious it became, and the more it transformed my perspective. For example, I realised that while it is tempting to think of a tightening global cap on emissions as a solution in itself, such a cap is meaningless without on-the-ground solutions at the local and individual levels.

The true challenge lies not in the essential process of agreeing a cap, but in transforming our society so that it can thrive within this limit. If we fail in this, the pressure to loosen or abandon any cap will become irresistible - "enough talk of future generations, my children are hungry today".

So now that the UK Government (and President Obama) have agreed to an 80% emissions reduction by 2050 the focus must shift to implementing national frameworks that can engage communities in the transition to a lower-carbon society. At present the UK Government has over a hundred policies that impact on emissions levels but has produced, in the words of the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee,