In many ways, addressing deforestation should be the easiest part of the battle. According to the UN it accounts for 20 per cent of manmade carbon emissions each year with roughly 50,000 square miles of tropical forests disappearing every 12 months - equivalent to half the land mass of Great Britain.

But while the problem is huge study after study has shown that halting deforestation would represent the most cost effective means of reducing emissions. According to a study from UK think tank The Policy Exchange this week, investing the £550m the government is spending on biofuel subsidies alone in forestry protection would increase avoided emissions 50-fold.

In short, no carbon reduction initiative or renewable energy project offers better value for money than forestry protection. It seems so simple: develop a workable means of forestry protection and we can slash emissions by 20 per cent in double quick time, giving economies the extra breathing space they require to make the journey towards low carbon technologies.

The problem - and it is a dilemma that has haunted environmentalists since long before Sting began patronising Amazonian tribes - is how to achieve this, and once again the politicians appear to be looking in all the wrong places.

The deforestation debate at the latest round of UN climate change talks in Ghana this week centred on a number of different proposals, all of which aim to throw cash at the problem.

A tax on forestry firms to fund forest protection is one idea in the mix, as is a huge increase in forestry investment funds, such as those recently proposed by the Brazilian government. But the idea that appears to have gained the most traction and now seems likely to be adopted is the integration of forestry schemes into the global carbon market.

The thinking behind such a move is simple: provide countries with a way of monetising the continued survival of their tropical forests through the sale of carbon credits and they have a clear incentive to protect them and not cut them down.

But even if you ignore the potential dampening effect on the price of carbon that is likely to result from the issuing of millions of new carbon credits, you have to ask if such an approach could work?

The US delegation has previously voiced concern that such a scheme would effectively equate to paying loggers and the governments that fail to act against them not to do something that is already illegal. It is easy to dismiss this as the classic obstructionism that has come to define the US approach to climate change talks - but on this occasion they have a point.

Paying people not to do something smacks of a protection racket, and the problem with protection rackets is they have a habit of getting nasty.

The belief that if you throw enough cash at forestry protection you can halt the destruction of our remaining forests conveniently ignores quite how huge tropical rainforests still are.

There was a lovely story this week revealing that nearly half of Australia remains completely untouched by man with three million square kilometres qualifying as genuine wilderness. Well, the Amazon Rainforest stands at around 5.5m square kilometres - it's getting smaller all the time, but like the great forests of Africa and South East Asia it is still gargantuan.

Forestry protection initiatives have been very successful on a relatively small scale, but you can't just throw a fence round these forests and keep the loggers out. Nor can you pay them off and hope that they will stick to their side of the bargain and stop logging when there are such vast swathes of land for them to abuse.

Moreover, several green groups have voiced concerns that monetising the forests could have dire consequences for indigenous communities. If governments recognise the forests that make up their homes as a financial resource the temptation to force them off their land would be huge.

Alternatively, the money raised from forestry credits could go direct to the communities that call those forests home. But, while you can debate the moral issues surrounding the historical payment of reparations to indigenous communities, many of whom have been horribly abused over the centuries, there are few who would argue that a massive influx of cash can bring with it huge social problems as well as benefits.

None of this is to say that investment in forestry protection should not be increased, nor that it is still one of the most cost effective means of curbing emissions. But politicians need to recognise the limitations of such an approach.

In many ways forestry protection is a classic case of treating the symptom and not the cause.

The real answer to the forestry crisis lies not in carbon credits, investment funds, or anti-logging enforcement squads; it lies in the underlying economics that drive deforestation.

It is this that should have dominated the agenda in Ghana and should underpin those parts of the post-Kyoto deal that address deforestation.

We cannot hope to address deforestation while demand for timber and agricultural land makes illegal and unsustainable logging so attractive. If government's are really serious about the problem far more needs to be done to address these issues by enhancing productivity on existing agricultural land, curbing demand for biofuel crops that only serve to fuel deforestation, and developing alternatives to timber.

Get that right and then forestry credits might just stand a chance of working.

Right, I'm off to try and develop me some thin film solar cells, there's a lot of money in it apparently.

Have a good weekend,

Cheers,

James

Alice Chapple, director of sustainable financial markets at Forum for the Future, was the one throwing down the gauntlet, urging the sector to come up with a new nomenclature to replace the intrinsically flawed terminology of "offsetting" and "carbon neutrality".

She explained that she had not come up with anything better herself as yet, but felt the sector would benefit from the development of a banner thatb could prove less contentious and confusing.

The problems with the idea of offsets and carbon neutrality are well documented. Both feel like over-selling. The idea that you can simply offset or neutralise your emissions simply does not tally with the reality, where proving both the amount of carbon that has been emitted in the first place and the extent to which offset investment has definitively reduced emissions is fraught with difficulties.

The boldness of the claims embedded within the terms "offsetting" and "carbon neutrality", while tempting to firms looking for a quick and easy way to bolster their green credentials, have also opened the entire industry up to wave after wave of criticism.

If you are "offsetting" my carbon why are you investing in tree planting programmes that could take 100 years to soak up my emissions? How can you be sure my emissions are fully "neutralised"? How do you prove this project would not have happened anyway? If my emissions are neatly "neutralised", why can't I just go on emitting?

But if "offsetting" and "neutrality" are weighted with problems what should we be using instead? What can marry the catchiness and clarity of these terms, while tackling the philosophical questions that hang over the industry?

The best I had come up with was the idea of a "carbon contribution".

Instead of providing people with the certainty of an "offset", you simply ask them to make a "contribution" to a carbon reduction scheme. That contribution can be roughly in line with the amount offsetting firms would say you should make to offset your emissions, but in one swoop you remove the guarantees that it will exactly neutralise your emissions.

Those signing up can not kid themselves that they are completely eradicating their carbon impact, but can still make a financial contribution to the fight against climate change. Meanwhile, the complex administration that is required to ensure projects deliver the precisely right amount of emission reductions can be got rid of, ensuring that more of the money goes straight to the projects involved.

However, the idea of a "carbon contribution" is in many ways just as flawed as that of an offset.

It may get round the problem of overselling, but the fact is that many business customers like the certainty offered by an offset. Moreover, while simplifying verification processes might help raise more funds for projects they would also leave this contribution model open to exploitation by unscrupulous providers who, unless tightly policed, could get away with making a small contribution to carbon reduction projects while pocketing much of the cash.

Perhaps a better proposal is that put forward this week by Dr Paul Hooper of the Manchester Metropolitan University for "Climate Compensations". The approach may be similar to that proposed under a carbon contribution model but the slight shift in semantics has a number of advantages.

Firstly, it is instantly understandable. People know what compensation means and they know that while compensation payments are designed to help they rarely equate exactly to the original cost imposed by a problem. You may compensate someone if you do something wrong, but you know implicitly that you should not have done something wrong in the first place. You could not use climate compensations to assuage guilt in the way critics claim carbon offsets are often used.

Secondly, Hooper proposes that the projects funded by climate compensation payments would continue to be verified and inspected in the same way as offsets are currently.

Thirdly, it gives people the flexibility to pay what they can afford, potentially increasing the funding available to emission reduction projects.

But despite these advantages, there are still problems. As Edward Hanrihan of ICROA quite rightly points out, giving people flexibility to pay what they want could also result in them contributing far less than they do currently to projects. Equally, offsetting is finally gaining traction as a term and introducing a new terminology and business model now could undermine that momentum, particularly if both approaches ended up co-existing resulting in further confusion in the market.

And yet, with many potential customers retaining doubts about offsetting as a concept it surely makes sense to continue the debate over which banners are best placed to help the industry move forward. Suggestions on the back of a postcard would be great.

Properly, volcanically, apoplectically furious, in fact. In the words of the peerless Dr Frasier Crane I am so angry "I could kick a puppy through an electric fan".

The cause for this dyspeptic state of mind? The Kafkaesque world of the UK's attempts at green legislation.

It recently emerged that yet more PCs and TVs from the UK have been uncovered in scrap yards in Ghana where they are broken up in unregulated conditions that cause considerable harm to both the workers and the local environment.

Sadly, this is not a new story, in fact it's almost as old as the electronics industry itself, but it was meant to become a thing of the past when, after several years of delays, the UK finally passed stringent eWaste legislation last year.

Covering the introduction of the WEEE directive at the time I recall being told by a spokesman for the Environment Agency that it would initially instigate a "light touch" enforcement regime that would give firms a year or so to get used to the legislation before it started dishing out fines for non compliance.

Then, around six months after WEEE was introduced, the Environment Agency got caught up in the Treasury's slashing of Defra's budget, at which point it seems light touch became lighter still, gossamer light in fact.

And what does this softly, softly approach to enforcement mean? It means that workers in African scrap yards are continuing to cough their lungs up, while UK firms are openly flouting eWaste rules and illegally exporting broken electronic equipment without the slightest fear of detection.

Investigating the news that Greenpeace had found UK public sector PCs and monitors were being illegally broken up in appalling conditions in Ghanaian scrap yards, my colleague on BusinessGreen.com's sister title Vnunet.com, Rosalie Marshall, put it to a spokesman at the Environment Agency that its policing mechanisms may be falling a little short of expectations.

The response? Well, everyone always wants larger budgets for this kind of thing and you have to appreciate that the legislation is pretty "complex".

Well, yes the WEEE directive is complex, not least because firms can legally export working machines for reuse - a practice that extends working machines' lives but also provides illegal operators with an ideal cover for exporting broken machines. But despite this problem proper enforcement still isn't really that challenging.

If you can find the machines in Africa, as Greenpeace has already managed, then you can usually work out where they were from using the data that is all to often readily retrievable. I'm guessing the hospitals, schools and businesses where the machines originated haven't single handedly exported the old machines, so find out who their eWaste contractors are and you've got a pretty good staring point for an investigation. It hardly takes an Inspector Morse; hell, it doesn't even take an Inspector Clouseau.

Sadly, I am jaded enough to find basic incompetence such as this little more than mildly infuriating. But what is truly enraging is that this absence of proper enforcement is a becoming a systemic feature of the UK's green regulations.

Light touch regulation that minimises paper work and unnecessary audits and inspections is all well and good, but laws without any form of enforcement aren't real laws at all, they are aspirations - or worse still they are jokes, like those bizarre historic laws left on the statute book that stop you from using a postage stamp upside down.

Imagine the media furore if the government had introduced recent legislation banning hunting or smoking in pubs with the words, "we'll give everyone a couple of years to get used to it and then we'll cut the budget of the people charged with enforcing it to a point where they are never that likely to catch anyone anyway".

This relaxed approach to policing of corporate rules has always been justified (in private at least) on the grounds that it is exactly what business leaders want.

But while this may be true of the old school, laissez faire corporate titans I'd argue that when it comes to environmental legislation the new breed of enlightened green execs take a very different view.

It is hard to imagine that, having invested millions in developing WEEE compliant take back schemes, high profile manufacturers such as HP and Dell really want to operate in a world where firms handling their eWaste face next to no threat of legal action if they do flout the rules. Moreover, I'm sure they would love to see those competitors that have not seen fit to take the issue of IT recycling as seriously caught out on occasions.

Moreover, those firms already preparing for the extension of the UK's carbon cap-and-trade scheme through the Carbon Reduction Commitment will hardly be delighted at what already looks like another anaemic enforcement regime that will struggle to keep tabs on those firms that bend the rules.

The government can talk up its "world-leading" climate change bill all it likes, but unless it gets serious about enforcement the news laws that will result will not be worth the paper they are written on.

Right I'm off to try and find me a mutated fish and a boulder bunny.
Have a good weekend,

James

That, in a nutshell, is the diagnosis from software giant Oracle's recent study on the state of the world's supply chains.

Of course, as a provider of software designed to help fix supply chains this conclusion is almost as self serving as David "show me the keys to No 10" Cameron's assessment of our supposedly "broken society". But that does not make the company's analysis of siloed, poorly integrated supply chains any less valid.

In truth, nothing Oracle is saying is particularly surprising. We all know that supply chains have become sprawling monsters that are supremely difficult to keep track of, a fact evidenced by the still routine uncovering of poor working practices at far too many of the factories that supply some of our most famous high street brands.

Equally, the revelation from Oracle's, admittedly small, survey of supply chain managers that almost half have no access to data from beyond those parts of the supply chain they manage directly only confirms the experiences of many who work in logistics.

The problem for firms keen to cut the environmental impact of their supply chains (which given high fuel prices, imminent legislation and the West's direct responsibility for much of the pollution in China and India should be everyone) is that it is impossible to start cutting emissions until you have a complete overview of the entire supply chain.

As Oracle's Dave Food pointed out it is this absence of oversight that has resulted in initiatives to cut emissions that are in danger of having the exact opposite result. The best examples top date are the debate over whether cut flowers from Africa actually have a lower carbon footprint than those from the Netherlands, because despite the flight they do not require heated glass houses, and concerns that cutting packaging levels could result in more emissions if it results in more breakages during transport. You get the feeling these simple examples could be the tip of the iceberg - the problem, of course, is that we just don't know.

The question now is how to fix these supply chains and get the information that is required to start driving effective carbon reduction initiatives - given they have already been in place for a couple of decades and relatively basic best practices such as communicating with partners and undertaking thorough audits are still well short of being universal it is obviously quite a challenge.

Perhaps the answer lies in not continuing to push these best practices - a Sisyphean task that appears to be making limited progress - but instead taking an entirely new approach altogether.

One of the most intriguing predictions in the Oracle study is that we will start to see the emergence of shared distribution networks whereby different firms, and in some cases even competitors, use the same logistics networks. In the case of retailers, for example, they already often outsource production to the same factories and farms, so why not do the repeat the trick with distribution? It is rare that distribution represents an area of competitive advantage and as such it makes sense to work with other firms and enjoy the carbon efficiencies, financial savings and greater ease of oversight that goes with that.

Another enticing prospect is that in order to gain the oversight they so desperately require firms will begin to take back control of their supply chains. American Apparel, one of the fastest growing clothes company's of recent years, is the poster child for this movement (and what posters they are), controlling almost every aspect of its supply chain and manufacturing the clothes in its own factories. The company has been so successful that others are bound to be taking notes.

Bringing an entire supply chain in house is likely to prove too daunting a prospect for most firms, even if there is a strong CSR and environmental case for doing so. But there are signs that firms are finally looking to co-operate with supply chain partners in a much more proactive manner than in the past. A group of high profile multinationals are now working with the Carbon Disclosure Project to routinely request carbon data from supply partners, while supply chain reforms sit at the heart of Wal-Mart's wide-reaching environmental programme.

We're also beginning to see more and more big multinationals starting to offer funding to their supply chain partners. IKEA this week pledged to invest €50m in clean tech start ups, responding to an absence of affordable green products by trying to kick start their development. The primary aim of such initiatives is to accelerate the emergence of new products that the retailers can then sell, but they also herald a more proactive approach to supply partner management - if you've got your own money invested in a firm you are more likely to keep a close eye on them.

There are certainly a fair few broken supply chains out there, but just maybe we are beginning to see a willingness to fix them.

Right, I'm off to make me some "anti noise" while trying to work out what exactly it is that George Bush has against cute and fluffy animals.

Cheers,

James

By that reckoning there has not been a great deal of intelligence on display over the past couple of weeks as the two sides of the debate surrounding the new Kingsnorth coal-fired power station bite chunks out of each other.

In fact, at times reasoned thought has been so noticeable by its absence that the whole imbroglio has resembled one of those manufactured, overly simplistic arguments that look more at home in the Big Brother house than the corridors of power (personal favourite moment so far, Arthur Scargill promising to asphyxiate himself if George Monbiot is willing to make like a Russian spy in a sushi restaurant and get a bit too close to some radiation).

The problem with the debate over Kingsnorth is that both sides of the row are clinging to positions that are almost entirely justifiable. Moreover, they are each attempting to navigate a series of facts that all but the most blinkered climate change denier and hair shirt wearing green are agreed on.

For those of you new too the argument (and you really should get involved - like all bust ups it is strangely captivating), here are those facts in something like their entirety:

1. Coal is one of the dirtiest fossil fuels on the planet. If the UK approves Kingsnorth and the new generation of coal fired power stations in the planning pipeline, and those plants then fail to implement successful carbon capture systems, we have no chance of meeting our carbon emission reduction targets.

2. The best way to reduce UK, and indeed global carbon emissions, is to keep the coal in the ground.

3. The UK faces a serious and widening energy gap as it retires the current fleet of coal and nuclear power stations.

4. With renewable and nuclear energy both likely to take decades to reach the required capacity the short term options for plugging the energy gap are between coal and gas. UK gas supplies are dependent on some pretty dicey parts of the world, not least Georgia and Russia neither of whom seem to be doing their bit for international stability at the moment.

5. Carbon capture technologies are largely unproven at large scale.

6. Carbon capture technologies need proving at large scale.

7. If energy firms are mandated to install carbon capture systems on new coal power plants before such systems are fully proven they are unlikely to invest in such plants, leaving the UK with a continuing energy gap.

8. If energy firms are not mandated to install carbon capture systems a new generation of coal power plants without such systems would negate any attempts to cut emissions in other parts of the economy (see fact one). A high price on carbon delivered through the EU's emissions trading scheme would encourage them to install such systems without the need for regulation, but there is no guarantee the price would be high enough.

9. What the UK does is largely irrelevant given that countries such as the China, India and the US remain committed to coal fired power.

10. A global climate deal that puts a meaningful price on carbon could stop all countries from using coal and force them to shift towards cleaner forms of energy that will suddenly appear cheaper.

11. An international deal that sets a price on carbon high enough to make coal economically unviable is about as likely as goodwill breaking out across the Caucasus.

Now I'd argue that each of these points are pretty hard to dispute. We might like things to be different but they represent the reality at the moment and the challenge is navigating a route that allows carbon emissions, both in the UK and globally, to fall, while energy needs are still met.

In an ideal world this would be achieved by leaving the coal in the ground and scaling up renewables and even nuclear capacity to plug the gap. But, sadly the chances of this happening quick enough and on the global scale that is required are slimmer than an Olympic distance runner.

The least worst scenario now is to grant approval to Kingsnorth but with a set of caveats far, far tighter than those the government is proposing at the moment.

Firstly, Kingsnorth must be built with carbon capture and storage (CCS) attached. Not at some point in the future, but right from day one.

E.ON, the company proposing the plant, has no incentive to install CCS so the government must provide the bulk of the funding. It is already running a competition for a £1bn CCS demonstration project and Kingsnorth is one of the proposals in the mix. The other projects will complain, but Kingsnorth should be awarded the contract straight away. All governmen's are happy to bend competition rules when it is in the wider national interest and this is one of those occasions. We need to know if CCS can work and fast, and where better to start than on a brand new power plant. Other sites might be more suitable, but if CCS cannot be made to work at almost any location then the argument put forward by its proponents that it can help cut emissions by being retrofitted to existing plants is obviously a crock.

Secondly, no other coal fired plant should be granted approval until CCS is proven to work at Kingsnorth. The energy companies will claim the other sites in the pipeline are needed and perhaps they are, but granting these approval before we know CCS is viable would be like buying an engagement ring before you've even been on a first date - presumptuous and stupid. If Kingsnorth alone cannot address the energy gap - and it can't - we'll just have to redouble our efforts around renewables and nuclear.

Thirdly, the government must signal that it is willing to either guarantee that the price of carbon will be high enough to make coal stations without CCS economically unviable or it must ban them outright. It has to make it explicit that if CCS succeeds at Kingsnorth it will be fitted to all future plants and if it fails Kingsnorth will be the last coal fired power station ever built in the UK.

If these guarantees make the project too risky a proposition for E.ON then other investors must be found. If CCS is as attractive a technology as the government maintains they should be queuing up.

Fourthly and finally, the government should fund a second CCS demonstration project to retrofit CCS to an existing plant. Again, if it is as serious as it keeps saying about the commercial opportunity presented by selling CCS to China and India this will represent a good investment.

Like all good compromises such an approach would please no one. E.ON would likely claim it is taking on too much risk, environmentalists would argue that the guarantees carbon emissions will be curbed are not strong enough, and the government would be angry at having to find more cash to fund a second CCS project.

But given the facts as they stand and the Realpolitik acceptance that globally the development of CCS is an essential safety net to go alongside the continuing expansion of renewables, then such a compromise represents perhaps the only way out of the current impasse.

It was always only a matter of time before those opposed to the steady march of the green movement used the economic slowdown to try and force it back to the margins of the political debate - and this week they were out in force.

Mayor Boris, for example, celebrated getting through 100 days in office without any humiliating groveling apologies (give it time, they'll come) by scrapping a flagship zero carbon vehicle project, while professional controversialist Julie Burchill offered up her assessment of environmentalists as "supremely unsexy" hypocritical poshos who manufacture their concern over the environment as an excuse to tell poorer people what to do (much to the amusing chagrin of George Monbiot).

Meanwhile, over at The Times columnist Alice Thompson offered a thorough assessment of why "being green is not cool anymore", arguing that the "the chilly economic climate... has frozen the shoots of environmentalism". Citing static demand organic produce and a MORI poll showing that the proportion of people who rank the environment as one of their top three concerns has fallen from 15 to 10 per cent in the last year, she argued that "espousing the green life, with its misshapen vegetables and non-disposable nappies, is increasingly being seen as a luxury by everyone".

Admittedly, she concludes that a desire to lower energy and food bills means people are behaving in a greener manner by growing their own veg and trying to embrace energy efficiency, but the crux of the argument remains that the environment is fast receding as a political and business topic.

What is so interesting about these attacks is that both Thompson and Burchill, perhaps wilfully, are addressing an extremely narrow and increasingly outdated idea of what constitutes an environmentalist.

The idea that the green movement is faltering because fewer people can afford to buy organic Swedes or because environmentalists are still perceived as hair shirt attired hippies completely fails to comprehend the extent to which the green movement has shifted in recent years from niche popular movement to critical economic issue.

Demand for organic fruit and veg and other green consumer products will undoubtedly drop off as people tighten their belts, but the importance of this market to the green business movement has always been overstated (in fact you can make a case for it not being green at all given organic crops lower yields and the requirement at a time of rising food prices for more land to be given over to farming).

The business world's interest in green issues has always been more about the opportunities and challenges presented by the massive structural shift towards a low carbon economy than opening up a couple of relatively small new consumer markets. As such the economic slowdown will have negligible impact on the emerging clean technologies and green business models that truly define the green business movement. In fact, with the slowdown caused in no small part by rising energy prices there is a strong case for saying that the case for greener and more energy efficient infrastructure and processes.

This is certainly the view of most investors as the alternative energy gold rush and recent spate of clean tech IPOs clearly demonstrates.

Right, I'm off to put my money in Brazil.

Have a good weekend,

James

I can't remember the show, but I do recall that the presenter was an acolyte of the Michael Parkinson sycophancy as interrogation school of interviewing and asked Gazza something to the effect of why he was so good at football.

In an all to rare moment of lucidity, the man who famously introduced himself to Lazio fans with a belch, explained that he had an ability to anticipate what was going to happen two or three moves down the line and get himself in the right place to take advantage. He felt he knew where the ball was going to end up.

Gazza is not alone in this observation. It is remarkable how often the greatest sportsmen identify this sense of anticipation as their defining quality - the thing that allows them to stand out from their peers.

Obviously, it is not the case in the glorified kindergarten games of the Olympics, where the only variables are the athlete's dedication, genetics and drug intake. But in the organised chaos of team sports an ability to instantly recognise, understand and analyse all the variables at play is what so often differentiates players. At the highest levels, every player has the same command of the basic skills a sport requires and pretty much the same fitness levels - it is the sense of anticipation that really separates the world beaters from the journeymen.

Now it is hardly a new observation, to argue that there is to link between the world of business and sport. Indeed, battalions of inarticulate middle aged men who were once moderately good at kicking various shaped balls are able to keep themselves in Pringle sweaters by fleecing businesses for millions by making this very same point on the after dinner circuit. But that does not mean that the parallels are any less true.

For businesses, a mastery of the technical basics - the day-to-day ability to develop and sell good products while balancing the books - is essential for their survival. But like the difference between David Batty and Gazza what separates the good from the great is the ability to see what's coming and react accordingly. The problem is that when it comes to businesses ability to anticipate three or four moves ahead there are far more Battys out there than Gazzas.

This was made apparent this week with the news that many businesses remain woefully under prepared for the introduction of the UK's new carbon cap-and-trade scheme, despite the fact its introduction is less than two years away.

But while the failure of businesses to begin implementing the processes and systems required to comply with the Carbon Reduction Commitment is a particularly blatant example of many firms' failure to look beyond the end of the next quarter, there are countless other instances of companies missing out on opportunities, or worst still conceding own goals, as a result of their inability to anticipate the changing nature of green legislation and technologies.

The most frustrating thing for spectators is that all it takes is for businesses to get their heads up and look around to see what is happening and where the opportunities will be.

This week alone we've seen the Spanish government unveil one of the most wide reaching packages of green regulations in history, energy prices heading north with promises of further rises on the way, and US legislators facing yet more law suits demanding that they act to curb carbon emissions.

As the Co-op argued this week in its report criticising oil companies plans to exploit carbon heavy tar sands in North America, those companies and investors that fail to anticipate the carbon regulations that all the evidence suggests are coming are taking huge risks and could yet be badly burned.

Of course, just as in football, taking time to analyse all the variables and work out what will happen next is extremely difficult in the heat of competition and as such businesses find it hard to think much further ahead than the next quarter even when times are good, let alone when the economy is struggling.

But it is worth noting that not one of the companies currently prospering as a result of growing demand for green products is an over night success story. Whether it's a global conglomerate such as GE and its Ecomagination initiative or an emerging start up such as Tesla and its electric cars, they all saw the way the market was moving several years ago and began to plan accordingly so that they are only now in a position to begin reaping the rewards.

For those businesses that haven't yet worked out what to do about the changing realities posed by soaring energy costs and environmental legislation the time to decide whether they want to be amongst the journeymen or the global superstars of this world is fast approaching.

Right, I'm off to brush up on my GCSE physics and see if I too can work out a cheap way to make hydrogen.

Have a good weekend,

James

In the UK, the wind industry's dominance of the renewables sector has never looked more secure with the government confirming last month that wind will form the centre piece of its renewables strategy over the next decade, the north east fast emerging as global hub for the sector, the planning problems that have dogged both large and small scale projects apparently beginning to recede, and the flagship Thames Array project back on track after Shell's exit.

There is little doubt the sector is set to enjoy a bumper decade or two, but looking further into the future it is possible to detect some storm clouds on the horizon (I'll stop the weak weather references now, promise).

The problem hinges on the simple question of what do you do when the wind stops blowing.

I'm not suggesting, like Jeremy Clarkson and his acolytes, that the problem of reliability makes turbines worthless. The accuracy of modern wind profiling and site selection coupled with the ability to limit the risk posed by still conditions by developing a network of wind farms so huge that it is highly unlikely all the turbines will stop turning at the same time means the case for turbines remains a strong one.

But that said the inherent issue of reliability means that wind will always be vulnerable to being displaced by the emergence of renewable energy technologies that offer a more predictable flow of energy.

Two projects, both still in the earliest stages of development, underlined this reality this week.

The proposals for a tidal barrage or fence across the Severn Estuary which were published this week may all end up proving much more expensive than wind farms, but the sheer amount of energy it could tap - enough to meet five per cent of the UK's electricity needs, apparently - and the day in day out predictability of that energy make the project extremely attractive.

Similarly, the hugely ambitious proposals for a string of solar farms across North Africa and the Middle East capable of providing energy to all of Europe would not come cheap, particularly when the entire continent's energy grid would need converting to high voltage direct current cables. But again the reliability of the Saharan sun makes the concept difficult to ignore as the potential long term solution to Europe's energy problems.

Wind would play its part in such a project with offshore wind farms in the North Sea and geothermal power stations in Iceland also feeding into the grid, but solar would surely enjoy the lion's share.

In fact, even if the plans for African solar farms die a death in the corridors of Brussels the wind sector can expect to face increased competition from solar as panels become steadily cheaper and more efficient. This is particularly true in the microgeneration space where the emergence of solar roofs, walls and windows appear a much better bet than the much criticised mini turbines.

This is not to suggest the medium term outlook for the wind sector is anything other than rosy. Wind turbines will maintain the cost advantage they enjoy over most other renewables for a good few years yet and once governments have backed a technology as they have done with wind they tend to be very slow to shift their allegiance.

But there remains a very real chance that wind turbines could ultimately prove themselves the video recorders of renewable energy - a stop gap technology, destined to enjoy several decades of complete dominance before ultimately being edged out by a superior alternative.

Right, I'm off to try and get my hands on a Canadian visa.

Have a good weekend,

James

Well, not always.

Under proposals set out this week by Ofgem and designed to slap gold, silver or bronze labels on energy companies' various green energy tariffs, some firms could find themselves deciding that a tariff carrying a bronze label is actually significantly better than one that has been awarded gold.

A system designed to bring clarity to a bewildering market, looks like it could just lead to yet more confusion.

The problem centres on Ofgem's failure to draw a distinction between those green tariffs that work by investing a customers' money in building extra renewable energy capacity and those that invest it in carbon offsets or energy saving initiatives.

According to Ofgem, green tariffs will be rated based on how much money the energy provider is putting into these very different environmental schemes, not the nature of the schemes themselves.

Now, if you are of the view, as many people are, that signing up to a green tariff should represent a means of buying renewable energy at a premium rate that allows you as a customer to support the building of extra renewables capacity then you could find yourself in the bizarre position of having to eschew a gold rated green tariff based on contributions to a carbon offset tree planting scheme in favour of a bronze rated tariff that actually results in extra wind turbines being built.

This is not to say the Ofgem proposals are all bad. The plan to force energy providers to be more transparent about exactly what their green tariffs involve is welcome, as is the move to only accredit those tariffs that deliver environmental benefits beyond those the energy companies are already legally obliged to deliver under the government's Renewables Obligation. But you can't help but feel that the goal of making it easier for the customers to identify the best green tariffs has been missed.

With countless green accreditation, certification and labelling schemes now available the need to closely assess the criteria by which they judge products and services has never been more urgent.

Buying a product with a green label should give you confidence that it is amongst the greenest options available, but sadly this is not always the case and procurement professionals need to be careful not to get caught out.

Detailed, verifiable criteria such as those being used to underpin California's plans for carbon rating labels on car number plates are an extremely valuable tool for changing purchasing behaviour and boosting the market for green product. But too many accreditation criteria are outdated, poorly enforced or just plain lax and in many cases buying a product with a green label is no guarantee that it is really that green. It may negate the purpose of labelling schemes altogether, but it is essential firms take a very close look at the criteria each scheme uses before using them as an indication of green credentials.

Right, I'm off to put on another jumper and fix that leaky tap.

Have a good weekend,

James

"Good," said the seemingly endless battalion of associations, lobbyists and trade groups who claim to represent motorists' interests, before realising they had the chancellor on the ropes and adding that "of course, it doesn't go far enough."

Not satisfied with their victory, spokesman after spokesman trotted out their view that while the postponement was welcome, rising oil prices and the fact that many hauliers are "on the brink" meant the government should go further and cut fuel duty.

But where was the countervailing view?

The Green Party and bodies such as Friends of the Earth did their best, pointing out that rising oil prices show exactly why the government should embrace measures such as higher fuel duty that serve to wean people off of fossil fuels.

But as is so often the case it is all too easy for the media and business groups to dismiss such arguments as the preserve of the old hair shirt brigade. Consequently, the view that fuel prices are too high and need to be reduced is allowed to become established as the conventional wisdom almost unchallenged.

What is urgently required are green business leaders who are willing to make the case for potentially unpopular green measures from an explicitly commercial perspective.

Where are the retailers committed to green supply chains who are willing to say that yes, high fuel prices are a problem, but they pose a far bigger problem for those companies running inefficient fleets than those who are already moving to improve their fuel efficiency?

Where are the electric car and rail companies who are willing to argue that while rising fuel prices represent a challenge for road hauliers and conventional auto manufacturers they represent a great opportunity for greener alternatives?

Where are the business groups - I'm looking at you CBI - who are brave enough to point out that lobbying for lower fuel duty in the face of soaring global oil prices only serves to distract from the urgency with which businesses should be looking for alternative business models that leave them less exposed to fossil fuels?

The problem is that barring a couple of noticeable exceptions, there is a near complete absence of such figures, and while the silence is particularly noticeable with regards to the fuel duty debate it is similarly evident around almost every green business issue.

For example, I've spoken with several people within the wind industry who feel that the trade groups that represent them are far too willing to keep their counsel for fear of alienating Whitehall mandarins, when they should be screaming from the rooftops about the countless barriers being put in the industry's way.

They have a point - you know for sure that if the motoring lobby faced even a fraction of the challenges that have dogged the renewable energy industry they would have taken to the streets long ago.

The scarcity of business figures willing to speak up for the sector is understandable in many ways. The bulk of specialist green firms are still relatively small and tend to be more focused on building their own businesses than they are on becoming champions for a whole sector. Meanwhile, those larger firms that have signalled their support for a low carbon future - Tesco, M&S, Virgin, HSBC, et al - are hampered by either a traditional reluctance to get involved in political debates or an unwillingness to anger shareholders by being seen to lobby for measures that would result in higher energy costs.

But the fact remains that as the economic slowdown begins to bite and those lobbyists representing carbon intensive industries become ever more desperate green businesses will need vocal champions more than ever.

There is a strong long term business case for measures that increase the costs for carbon intensive firms and incentivise the shift towards alternative technologies - plenty of firms realise this, we just need more willing to come out and say so.

Climate change, energy prices and food shortages will be the only topics in town and, to be honest, you can understand why.

The concern is that a focus on the two shorter term concerns - spiralling energy prices and worsening food shortages - could dampen appetites for action on climate change. But now, more than ever this cannot be allowed to happen.

These issues are so closely intertwined that you cannot address one area without tackling all three.

Food shortages will only get worse if climate change is not addressed, just as in the long term peak oil means rising fuel prices can only be brought under control by a shift towards alternative energy sources.

In this light, an agreement on climate change has to come first and if that means the short term pain presented by high oil prices continues then so be it - it's not nice but it is necessary to force people to make the transition towards greener alternatives.

But what do we want from such an agreement?

Green business experts the world over have gone blue in the face requesting binding emission targets, a working price on carbon, a greater focus on energy efficiency and fresh efforts to tackle deforestation. PwC was the latest to have a go this week, insisting that such a strategy would be technically feasible and economically affordable.

But sadly the G8 is unlikely to deliver on this wish list next week - not least because negotiators have it in their mind that Copenhagen in December 2009 is the key date for reaching such a deal and they don't want to get ahead of themselves.

However, that does not mean the G8 cannot deliver real progress.

What businesses want to see is real leadership and a clear signal that an agreement next year is now inevitable. Ever since the UN's Bali conference delivered some sort of breakthrough fears have continued that some countries are looking to delay the process and water down the final agreement. If the G8 unequivocally declares that this will not be allowed to happen then firms can start planning investments safer in the knowledge that a meaningful post Kyoto deal will be delivered.

Get that sorted and then not only will we be in a better position to address food shortages and rising energy costs, but perhaps we would also be able to find the time to return to all those other concerns that will necessarily have to take a back seat during next week's talks..

Nowhere has the scale of this challenge been more clearly illustrated this week than in the reaction to the government's new renewable energy strategy.

To read most of the headlines you'd think that the whole affair was cooked up with the sole intention of driving up energy bills.

These headlines were supported by a raft of "experts" wailing about fuel poverty, the impact on the countryside of thousands of wind turbines and the strategy's £6bn a year price tag. Even the CBI - a vocal supporter of attempts to tackle climate change on most occasions - put the boot in, arguing that such a rapid increase in renewables capacity would not prove "cost effective".

The renewables industry and environmentalists did their best to kick back against this chorus of disapproval, praising the government to the heavens for finally developing a comprehensive strategy that combines the correct level of incentives with genuine commitments to remove the technical and planning obstacles blocking so many projects.

But sadly the media had decided on their angle and we were going to hear about little besides higher fuel bills, like it or not.

Never mind, that all the reports claiming that electricity bills would rise by up to 13 per cent and gas bills would climb by up to 37 per cent were based on the government's "worst case scenario". Never mind, that the projected increases in bills won't come on line until 2015. Never mind, that these calculations were based on the absurdly optimistic assumption that oil will cost $70 a barrel in 2020 and that as such the actual increases are likely to be far, far lower. And never mind, that in return for these higher bills the increase in renewable energy investment will create 160,000 jobs, bolster UK competitiveness internationally, and, most importantly, kick start the transition to a low carbon economy.

The problem for the government is that if it thinks these protests are loud now it ain't heard nothing yet.

Virtually every policy measure designed for driving the transition to a low carbon economy is governed by the principle of price signals. Whether its green taxes or plans to extend the EU's cap-and-trade scheme the end goal is to make carbon intensive activities more expensive in order to discourage people from undertaking them. This means that energy bills are going to get a lot higher, not as some unfortunate side effect of these policies but as the intended end product.

Businesses need to be aware that it is not just the renewables strategy that will drive up energy prices. The Carbon Reduction Commitment, changes to the European Emission Trading Scheme, the continued increases in the Climate Change Levy, the need for energy companies to pay for carbon capture systems and the natural effect of dwindling fossil fuel supplies are all going to contribute to higher prices.

The issue for the government is how to make the case for such measures in the face of protests that will only grow more intense. To shrug its shoulders and admit it is trying to raise bills on carbon intensive fuels at a time when people are struggling to make ends meet will only appear callous and will undoubtedly lose it yet more votes.

Instead the government needs to try and find the positives, while doing as much as possible to ease the transition to lower carbon technologies. The CBI is right in its contention that energy efficiency measures are more cost effective than renewables as a means of initially cutting emissions - a view echoed this week by one Tony Blair - and as such the government must support the renewables strategy with a hugely ambitious efficiency programme. It also needs to make sure that measures are in place to insulate the least well off against rising energy prices and provide smaller businesses with the help they require.

But most of all it needs to be brave.

The government's thinking on climate change is arguably well behind where it needs to be, but it is still ahead of much of the public and many businesses. In this light, it must resist the temptation to water down policies that contribute to higher energy bills and it needs to keep making the point that acting now is more cost effective in the long run. It also needs to make an example of those businesses that have understood the reality of both climate change and higher energy bills and are now providing evidence that it makes great business sense to identify means of cutting energy use sooner rather than later.

If Gordon Brown wants guidance on how all this can be achieved he need look no further than California, which this week unveiled a hugely ambitious strategy for cutting carbon emissions 30 per cent by 2020.

Amidst all the praise that routinely heads California's way it is easy to ignore the fact that this programme (which far outstrips much of what is on offer in Europe) has faced concerted opposition from both the federal government and many less enlightened industry groups.

The reaction of Governor Schwarzenegger has been an unwavering commitment to press on with reforms that he regards as right, necessary and economically beneficial. Instead of trying to triangulate his position and appease the doubters he has simply continued clearly and simply make his case.

The result is that not only is the state now the world's premier clean tech hub, but a man who was elected amidst predictions that he would prove little more than one a term joke has emerged as one of the most respected and popular figures in global politics.

Schwarzenegger provides ample proof, as if it were needed, that support for green measures can be mustered if the case is made clearly and proposals are backed by strong, unwavering leadership.

Sadly, as we've all learned in the past year, these are not amongst the prime minister's strongest suits.

Right, I'm off to try and wangle me a test drive in one of those all electric Range Rovers.

Have a good weekend,

James

Well, we could be about to get an answer.

According to The Guardian, the government's official Gallagher Review into biofuels could make extremely uncomfortable reading for those within Whitehall who perhaps hoped they would be able to stick with their proposed target of ensure five per cent of fuel comes from renewable sources by 2010.

Apparently, the review, which is due for publication next week and was commissioned by the Department for Transport itself, concludes that demand for biofuels has had a "significant" impact on world food prices and that the current targets require an urgent rethink.

The only surprise is that anyone should be surprised.

The simple fact is that with food shortages leaving over 100m people hungry and food prices soaring any agricultural land used to grow energy crops that could be used to grow food is only exacerbating the situation. You can cut the economics any which way you like, that is the situation.

The biodiesel industry can wail all it likes about the fact that its investments are being undermined and that governments are failing to take a consistent position, but anyone who invests in clean technologies accepts on the way in that while the rewards can be potentially massive some technologies will unfortunately fall by the way side.

To stick by an approach that has seen over a third of US corn and half of EU vegetable oils turned into biofuels at a time when food prices are soaring borders on the obscene. Moreover, anyone insisting, like the US and Brazilian governments, that the diversion of these crops into the tanks of people's cars is having a negligible impact on food prices are clearly deluding themselves.

It is painfully obvious that what is required is a major overhaul of global biofuel policy that ensures the only biofuels produced come from sources where it can be proved the crops have not displaced existing agricultural land or contributed indirectly or otherwise to deforestation.

That means the only biofuels authorised for use must be derived from waste organic matter, such as corn stalks or wood chips; crops that can be produced in an industrial context, such as algae; and perhaps crops such as switchgrass and jatropha that can be grown on marginal agricultural land not used for food production, although even here guarantees would be required that the crops do not spread onto established agricultural areas.

However, the chances of any of this being agreed any time soon still look remarkably slim given the the oil tanker-esque turning circles that tend to characterise shifts in governments' environmental policies.

No one wants knee jerk reactions from political leaders, but when it comes to tackling the biofuel issue in particular and the climate change challenge in general we do need a level of urgency that is currently lacking.

Fears over the wider impacts of biofuels first appeared in the mainstream media midway through last year and the research vindicating these fears emerged by the end of the year. And yet despite much rhetoric the government's official review is only appearing now and we can still expect it to be another six to 12 months before the controversial biofuel targets get changed - assuming that is that the government does the right thing and listens to the review's recommendations.

A similar thing is happening now with regards to renewable energy policy whereby countless reports, including one study this week from a parliamentary select committee and another from the government's own Renewables Advisory Board, have labelled the UK's renewable energy policy as inadequate. Yet the official review will not begin until later this summer and the full blown strategy designed to address the problem won't emerge until early next year.

In the meantime, renewable energy projects are still being blocked and other countries are stealing a march in the pursuit of the low carbon economy.

Whitehall is hardly renowned for its panther-like agility and it could be argued that the biofuel saga provides ample evidence of the dangers associated with rushing out environmental policies. And yet, at a time when business leaders are actively demanding bolder action it seems perverse that no brainer decisions such as the revision of the UK's renewable energy targets, the introduction of a feed in tariff for microgeneration and the suspension of current biofuel targets are not being taken.

Right I'm off to try and build me a solar printing press, 'cos those things are going to change the world.

Have a good weekend,

James

Hertzberg is chairman of UK solar start up G24i and founder of clean tech venture capital firm Renewable Capital, as well as the living embodiment of American can do brio. As a former Speaker of the California State Assembly and candidate for Los Angeles Mayor he also has a great insight into the relationship between environmental legislation and investment.

One of Hertzberg's top tips when looking for a clean tech investment is to be extremely wary of sectors that are only operating as a result of subsidy and legislative leg ups. He argues, not unconvincingly, that the best and indeed only way to transition to a low carbon economy is to make damn sure that green products are better and more cost effective than their traditional counterparts.

That is why he is enamoured with solar power in general, which advocates claim could soon compete with coal on price, and G24i's technology in particular, which the company, fresh from receiving $20m in venture funding, is seeking to integrate into mobile devices, providing them with a constant stream of power and removing the need for them ever to be recharged.

As Hertzberg observes if you have a Blackberry or mobile phone that never needs recharging and as such is far more convenient than conventional models people will want the device not just because it is greener but because it is better.

It is a philosophy that is hard to argue with and is all the more appealing because it envisions a scenario where if you develop the right product the switch over to a low carbon alternative can be achieved within a couple of years as opposed to a couple of decades. For investors it raises the possibility of backing the next Google, for the rest of us it offers the enticing prospect that we can genuinely decarbonise our economy relatively quickly.

There are signs in some sectors that this is beginning to happen. The recent shift in demand in favour of fuel efficient vehicles is a factor not of environmental concerns or legislation, but the simple fact that in a world of high fuel prices smaller cars are simply better.

Equally, it would be easy to dismiss the decision by developers of the Freedom Tower to install 12 fuel cells as a green publicity stunt, but if you believe the company providing the technology, UTC Power, the latest fuel cells are now cost competitive with the grid even before you consider the benefits you accrue from lower carbon emissions and not having to dig up the road to lay the electricity cables in the first place.

And who wouldn't want the washing machine unveiled this week that requires next to no water, uses little energy, doesn't shrink your clothes and doesn't require them to be hung out to dry afterwards. It's green, but is also in many respects just plain better than traditional models.

None of this is to suggest that legislation is not required to accelerate the transition to lower carbon technologies and business models in sectors where embedded economies of scale, decades long replacement cycles and cultural conservatism make it far harder for green alternatives to break through. And in this light it is encouraging to see political leaders in Japan, Europe and the US, including even President Bush, this week emphasising their commitment to more stringent environmental rules and regulations.

However, it is perhaps even more encouraging that if green businesses get their products spot on there is every chance of them forcing traditional counterparts out of the market with the same speed with which iPod's put paid to portable CD players. Not because they are greener, just because they are better.

Right, I'm off to try and work out how intense my carbon is feeling.

Have a good weekend.

Cheers,

James

I'm sure they're kind to their mothers, save lots of birds, are upstanding for the national anthem, etc.

But what I find more than a little disdainful is the mind-bendingly bizarre value system that sees the organisation, and others like it including WWF-UK and the National Trust, lobby against the proposed Severn Barrage.

The RSPB and seven other green groups have this week released a report they commissioned from consultancy Frontier Economics which concludes that the proposed Severn Barrage would prove significantly more expensive than other forms of renewable energy and could not be justified on economic grounds.

They appear to have decided that the government will play deaf to their pleas not to evict 68,000 odd birds by flooding their homes and have instead argued that the project should be blocked for economic as well as ecological reasons.

It is hard to know where to start when assessing how wrong headed all this is, but if the RSPB and co want to talk economics let's start there.

The fact is that all forms of large scale renewable energy projects are "exorbitantly expensive" when compared to fossil fuels and that is not about to change any time soon. You can argue that we should ditch the Severn Barrage project in favour of other forms of renewables on cost grounds, but if cost is the only consideration then you should ditch all renewables in favour of coal.

Furthermore, if we are going to focus on cost the most cost-effective form of renewable energy currently available is onshore wind farms, which, you've guessed it, have also faced occasional opposition from the RSPB for shredding birds and destroying habitats.

In fairness to the RSPB, it has been far more supportive of the wind energy sector than nimby-motivated countryside groups and has supported the development of many wind farms, including the Thames Array. But it also recently secured victory in its campaign against plans for a 181 wind turbine development on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, claiming it would damage ecologically important peatlands.

It is worth observing that if its sole concern when it came to the UK's renewable energy mix was cost then the RSPB would have supported the Lewis wind farm and opposed the far more expensive offshore Thames Array.

The fact is that cost is not the only consideration when looking at the pros and cons of the Severn Barrage. Yes, it would be far more expensive than other forms of renewable energy, but it would also deliver significant benefits: it would generate almost five per cent of the UK's energy in one hit at a time when attempts to build countless smaller projects are constantly hampered by local planning problems and the clock is ticking on the EU's renewable energy targets; it would provide a genuine flagship tidal energy project, underlining the UK's positions as a leader in marine energy and providing it with invaluable technologies and expertise that could be successfully exported; and it would provide a far more reliable source of energy than those turbines and solar panels that the RSPB et al are now advocating, but are at the mercy of changing weather conditions.

These benefits will have to be weighed up against the financial and environmental costs and it is exactly this work that the government is undertaking right now through its feasibility study.

Let's not kid ourselves here, the opposition of this coalition of green groups to the Severn Barrage is driven not by concerns for the tax payer but by their fears for our feathered friends - and it is this that I find so perverse.

Just so we're straight I do not hate birds. As a country boy born and bred I am well aware of the huge ecological, aesthetic and economic value of the biosphere - and that is precisely why I am so in favour of large scale renewable energy projects.

Climate science tells us that if by the end of this next decade we have not made significant progress towards decarbonising the economy then every single one of the habitats that wildlife groups campaign to protect will be irrevocably damaged. Yes, 60,000 birds could lose their homes as a result of the Severn Barrage, but if all such projects are stopped or even slowed down by concerns over local wildlife then the long term impact on the biosphere will be catastrophic.

And let's remember when we talk about the biosphere we are talking about human beings too.

It is hugely simplistic to try to position the Severn Barrage as a debate over the loss of wildlife in the Severn Estuary against the loss of human life in countries already being impacted by climate change, but at its most fundamental level that is what we are talking about.

It is hard to completely shake the feeling that somewhere along the line the opposition to many renewable energy projects undertaken in the name of wildlife conservation is underpinned by a sense that animals are more important than people. A view, which personally, I can't even begin to comprehend.

I spoke with Martin Harper, head of sustainable development at the RSPB, yesterday and he argued vehemently that the organisation "passionately supported renewable energy". It is just that it believes there are more sustainable options than the Severn Barrage and that the low carbon energy revolution that is required should be "achieved in harmony with the natural world".

But while that is all well and good in an ideal world, we have just 10 to 15 years to deliver significant cuts in carbon emissions and the sad truth is that to achieve the requisite changes at the requisite scale we will have to be far less precious about those still relatively small parts of the natural world that will get trampled on in the process. The RSPB and groups like it claim they support more sustainable renewable energy developments, but even where they do not explicitly stand in the way of projects the hugely onerous and long winded environmental assessments that developers are made to carry out only result in further delays.

If you accept the analogy that the fight against climate change needs to be treated with the same urgency as a World War - as many environmental groups and politicians do - then what opponents to projects such as the Severn Barrage are suggesting is that you call a halt to a battle for fear that some moorhens end up as collateral damage. Personally, I'm willing to sacrifice the birds.