• Launch of HCA and English Heritage Guidance set to pave way for new approach to masterplanning – Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) – "The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) and English Heritage today launched its first joint 'How to' Guide outlining a new development-led approach to masterplanning, which advocates assessing the historic character of a site right at the earliest stages of redevelopment. This is set to transform the way sites are redeveloped.
  The Guide, 'Capitalising on the inherited landscape – an introduction to historic characterisation for masterplanning' is the product of an innovative joint pilot project between the two agencies. This took the established conservation-led Historic Characterisation approach – encouraging the use of specific techniques to identify the distinctive characteristics of a site in order to explain an inherited sense of place and identity – as a starting point – and tested its value at different stages of the development process."
• BREEAM: BREEAM Europe Commercial 2009 – "We are delighted to announce the release of the updated BREEAM Europe Commercial 2009 scheme. After four months of consultation with clients, assessors, experts and technical researchers, the new scheme combines the 2008 versions of BREEAM Europe Offices, Retail and Industrial. Key changes to the Commercial 2009 scheme include:
  * Introduction of minimum standards specific to Europe
  * Introduction of exemplary level requirements specific to Europe. Other types of innovation credits will not be available in Europe at this point in time.
  * Post Construction Stage assessment is now mandatory like in the UK in order to get the final certificate.
  * New shell only approach as in UK BREEAM v3.0 Schemes applicable.
  * The manual is now be freely available for download on the website for anyone to access. "

• Crouching Tiger? | Forum For The Future – Excellent article on China. "Government backing for big green ambitions is also in evidence at Tianjin. This industrial port east of Beijing is to be the site of a hugely ambitious new ‘eco-city’, a joint Chinese-Singaporean venture which will shortly enter its first phase with the construction of a 1.5km2-‘eco-business park’. When complete, the city’s 350,000 residents will live in super-efficient buildings clustered in hubs designed to minimise commuting needs, and travel to work by light railway. It’s a lot less ambitious when it comes to energy, however, with only 20% to be sourced from renewables.
  In a country which builds two Manhattan islands’ worth of new floor space every year, there’s an urgent need for such exemplar developments. But Tianjin’s experiment will be watched closely, because such projects in China have often not lived up to expectations. "
• The Lazy Environmentalist: Desertec Industrial Initiative – I don't know how Polly finds the time or energy, but she's got good news for DESERTEC: "The aim is to ensure by 2050 that solar power from the northern Sahara will meet at least 15 percent of European electricity needs and a significant proportion of local electricity demand in the countries of North Africa. The purpose of the newly founded initiative is to clarify the technological issues and create the neccessary political, socio-political and economic foundations and develop a vaible implementation plan within the next three years. The DII is expected to network closely with the scientific community, non-governmental organisations and governement organisations. The DESERTEC Foundation will play a central role in this respect."
• how good is PAYS? « carbon limited – Great explanation from Casey on how PAYS might work (or not). The long and the short of it: "Even at this broad brush level, it’s clear that there will be a significant shortfall here. PAYS will not, single handedly, solve the existing stock problem. Someone else – either government or homeowners – are going to have to stump up and the costs are likely to be high."

• Concentration Solar Power Module Integrates Into Side And Roof Of Buildings – min-CSP – intriguing but no data in the article to back up the theory: "The system, of which the international patent has already been requested, consists of a stationary lens and a linear absorber plate that concentrates sunlight to generate energy. This concentration system reduces the space that until now was needed with traditional plates, which move around in search of sunlight"
• UK Climate Impacts Programme – Socio-economic scenarios – Getting quite old now (Feb 2001) but sets forward 4 potential scenarios for socio-economic situations against which climate change will play out in the UK :
  1. National Enterprise
  2. Local Stewardship
  3. World Markets
  4. Global Sustainability
  At 140 pages, it's not a quick read, but useful resource.
• A glimpse of the future as 56% of surveyors see workload fall (Brickonomics) – More sound commentary from Brian: "But for all the figures on workload, the two bits of data that will probably reflect most the long-term effects of the recession are those for employment and for profit margins. Both continue to look grim.
  It may sound like a management course cliché but one of the biggest weaknesses of the construction industry is one of its biggest strengths, its flexibility.
  And this weakness is exaggerated by the easy willingness of firms to work at below cost.
  My recollection of the 1990s recession was the less damage was done by falling workloads, which the industry's flexibility can absorb without huge stresses, than was done by winning work below true cost or at unsustainable thin margins."
• Monbiot.com » How Much Should We Leave in the Ground? – I had wondered about this before – good to see George has done the math for me: "Even ignoring all unconventional sources and all other greenhouse gases and taking the most optimistic of the figures in the two Nature papers, we can afford to burn only 61% of known fossil fuel reserves between now and eternity." This would result in a 2ºC rise in temperature. Adaptation, here we come…
• Monbiot.com » Crash Landing – Monbiot being unusually level headed: "we were told by both the airline companies and the Confederation of British Industry that business flights were necessary and non-negotiable: civilisation would collapse if executives weren’t able to fly whenever and wherever they wished. The government repeated this creed, insisting that the UK economy was dependent on the expansion of Heathrow. Now we learn that these are the first expenses to be cut when a contraction begins. Businesses are discovering that there are other means of engaging with people overseas, such as email, video-conferencing and an outlandish new device called the telephone."
• ACE – If we can’t count the buildings, how can we plan cuts in emissions? – There's an elephant in the room, and his name is data: "There is no definitive data showing precisely what the carbon footprint of Europe's buildings is. So we can have no confidence we can identify precisely what percentage of the carbon dioxide emissions by end use comes from space heating as opposed to water heating, lights and appliances as opposed to cooking."
• Why Has Globalization Led to Bigger Cities? – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com – Great article on cities with a slant on India: "The right response to the problems of megacities is not to get misty-eyed about village life, but rather to work to improve the quality of infrastructure in those growing urban areas."
• FT.com | The Undercover Economist | Dear Economist: Can you help me to stop procrastinating? – How to cope with procrastination: "The behavioural economists Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch conducted an instructive study of procrastination with three groups of students at MIT. Each group had to complete three assignments over the course of the 12-week course. The first group had a separate deadline for each paper, after four, eight and 12 weeks. The second group had no intermediate deadlines: all three papers were due at the end of the course. Students in the third group were asked to impose their own deadlines.
  Students with well-spaced deadlines – those in the first group and a subset in the third who had spaced out their deadlines – tended to achieve the highest grades. Students who had assigned themselves no intermediate deadlines, or had been assigned none, fared poorly."
• A new era for public health? « – "Yet one group of very important people now admit they too have neglected the issue. The latest edition of The Lancet – probably the world’s leading medical journal – says health professionals “have barely begun to engage with what should be the focal point for their research, preparedness planning and advocacy”. Now doctors see climate change as “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”.
  The Lancet calls for a “new public health advocacy movement” to usher in an unprecedented era of co-operation between widely divergent spheres such as disease, food, water, sanitation, shelter, settlements, extreme events, population and movement.”"
• Prince fails on sustainability – Building Design – A bit late getting to this one – Amanada takes on Charles: "This is where the speech unravelled for in making out “experimentation” to be a terrifying leap in the dark rather than something good based on hypotheses and a body of knowledge he came across as an intellectual Luddite, whose only solution is to retreat into a Hobbit-like world of organic earthy buildings and no cars."
• Carbon-effective refurbishment – Modern Building Services – Ant Wilson calls for an integrated approach to refurbished buildings: "At the same time, the lower metre could be well insulated and fitted with photovoltaics (PVs) and internally lined with phase-change boards. Emerging concentrated photovoltaic energy generation (CPV has around 1000 times less embedded energy than conventional PVs, and its price is falling rapidly, which will improve the cost-effectiveness of building-integrated PV in coming years."

• Sustainable Design: What Do Europeans Know That We Don’t Know (But Should)?- 3/1/2009 – Building Design & Construction – "The respective roles of regulation and market forces are quite different in Europe from what we expect in the U.S. and Canada. That's one of the fundamental current differences that are likely to converge over the next five years, as the U.S. and Canada face up to the carbon reduction challenge. Generally speaking, in Europe, and especially in the U.K., people expect their governments to regulate, so government incentives for energy-efficient buildings are less prevalent there than they are in the U.S., or even in Canada."
• Top 10 Myths about Sustainability: Scientific American – Fantastic (long) article:
  Myth 1: Nobody knows what sustainability really means.
  Myth 2: Sustainability is all about the environment.
  Myth 3: “Sustainable” is a synonym for “green.”
  Myth 4: It’s all about recycling.
  Myth 5: Sustainability is too expensive.
  Myth 6: Sustainability means lowering our standard of living.
  Myth 7: Consumer choices and grassroots activism, not government intervention, offer the fastest, most efficient routes to sustainability.
  Myth 8: New technology is always the answer.
  Myth 9: Sustainability is ultimately a population problem.
  Myth 10: Once you understand the concept, living sustainably is a breeze to figure out.
• Visualising sustainability « Computing for Sustainability – An incredible resource – 158 different visualisations of definitions of sustainability. I can't remember who send me this – thanks whoever it was.
• ArchNewsNow – WORDS THAT BUILD: Re-invent Green Communication – Great article from a great series. Can easily substitute BREEAM for LEED and it will read the same: "Your goal is to filter the enormous written text of LEED and deliver the gist of relevant LEED issues into commonplace and yet engaging English. This isn’t as quixotic as it might initially sound. The advantage of LEED language over odious “GREENSPEAK’ or “ECOMARKETBABBLE” is that it traffics in concrete specifics within building systems. The downside of LEED language is that it borders on “official” bureaucrat-ese,” the palaver of numbed technocrats."
• House 2.0: Why sash windows work – "in a critical passage in Part F, the ventilation regulations, there is a reference that says that, when replacing windows, rapid ventilation should not be made worse. Up until now, no one has challenged the assumption that this simply means that the openings should be of similar size. But it transpires that a single opening casement is far less effective at rapid ventilation than a combination of top and bottom openings."
• Sustainability in practice: Carbon profiling | Design details | Architects Journal – "Sturgis carries out carbon profiling using a bespoke software program that measures the embodied carbon of a building over its lifetime to ascertain its whole-life carbon footprint. Part L requires a calculation of operational energy-use, the Building Emission Rate (BER), which is calculated in kgCO2/m2/year. Carbon profiling uses these same units to measure Embodied Carbon Efficiency (ECE), including allowances for the demolition and transport associated with the building. The total annual carbon cost of a building is the sum of the BER (operational energy) and the ECE (embodied energy).
  Each component of a building is analysed. For example, an aluminium panel and glass cladding system can be compared with a concrete panel and glass cladding system. The concrete system uses about 20 per cent less carbon to construct than the aluminium and will last approximately two to three times longer. Therefore, the ‘carbon cost’ over time is significantly less for concrete than for aluminium."
• Should aesthetics be part of BREEAM? | Zerochampion – Guest post from Benjamin Kinch: "no matter how energy and water efficient a building may be, it becomes a waste of resources, a potential detriment to the community and environmentally damaging if no one wants to occupy it."
• Hallmarks of a sustainable city | Publications | CABE – "Hallmarks of a sustainable city sets out the practical and policy responses to climate change that CABE believes are needed to ensure our towns and cities are geniunely sustainable places."

• Mott MacDonald launches Abu Dhabi sustainable programme – Building – Estidama – Mott's BREEAM and LEED competitor, bespoke for Abu Dhabi. Anyone got a copy?
• HDI vs. Eco footprint – Great graphic from WBCSD plotting ecological footprint against human development index. Useful when comparing technologies suitable for different countries.
• France pushes for common standards in green building for Europe « La Vie Verte – Not a very french attitude, given their penchant for inventing new words when perfectly good one's exist already. But good news, nonetheless…
• B******s to Architecture: 207 : Education Bollocks – B2Architecture on top form:I believe that we need a fundamental readjustment in our education system – relinking architecture with the rest of the construction industry so that we can re-establish our position as the Team Leader, not be relegated to the l
• Technical questions – high NOx boilers, sound levels and data centre cooling – Impressive building services related Q&A from BSRIA.

• NYREJ – What works there, can work here: “Green” lessons from around the world – Architects and engineers sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture by focusing too intently on individual (certification) programs. Architects should focus on some of the universal themes found to be successful abroad, pull appropriate concepts and apply
• BREEAM goes to Europe – Property Week – BREEAM Retail Europe will be launched in July and reviewed 12 months later. It will initially cover new and refurbished buildings, but will be extended to older shopping centres at a later date.
• Best Green Companies tables – The Times 50 Best Green Companies venture has both a robust methodology to measure environmental performance and a survey of each company’s staff to find out whether the green sheen is more than skin-deep.
• Departmental Energy: 19 May 2008: Written answers (TheyWorkForYou.com) – Want to know what the energy spend in UK prisons was for the past couple of years? TheyWorkForYou has the answer.
• BREEAM raises stakes – Property Week – ‘Outstanding’ will require an 85%-plus score, whereas ‘excellent’ requires 70%. The new category will set minimum requirements for water and energy consumption in developments. Occupiers will also be able to view compulsory post-construction certi
• Free guide to alternatives to uPVC windows – The guide makes the various cases for alternatives, especially timber and goes into the different aspects of each one in terms of environmental impact and energy efficiency. It can be downloaded free from Sustainable Homes website – www.sustainablehomes.c
• Renew or repair existing window units? A best value approach – "decisions of choice based on quality issues as well as capital cost have given rise to problems within the public sector, leading to financial loss for client organisations in instances where they have failed to adhere to statute or regulatory codes requ

• The High Cost of Low Trust – Stephen Covey on trust in the business place: “With low trust, you get a lot of rules and regulations that take the place of human judgment and creativity”
• Ultimate House Design – Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) redesigns the house – and makes some valid points.
• SaaS – the killer app for CAD? – Good overview on where the world of CAD ought to be heading in the next few years…
• Energy saving most effective in CO2 cutting -report – Squeezing more productivity out of the energy that industries, homes and vehicles burn is the most economical way to stifle rising energy demand and control output of planet-warming gases, according to a new report from the McKinsey Global Institute.
• A standard method for the Whole Life Costing of Sustainable Design – RICS event on 18 March in Glasgow. Interesting topic
• UK-GBC supports Sustainable Building in Practice – A new guide to building sustainable homes was issued this week, which the UK-GBC is pleased to support.This publication provides hands-on, practical advice to developers in the area of new-build residential homes and contains several contributions from UK
• Mexico to build only energy-smart homes in three years – Aggressive plans by Mexico to produce no more traditional build houses within 3 years.
• Energy Efficiency in Buildings: EPBD ? The EU?s buildings platform; Stakeholders want to move on quicker despite the slow start in many Member States – Great article summarising recent events re: EPBD in Brussels. Good stats on where the rest of Europe are up to on implementation.
• Haden Young boss makes shock departure – Building – No sucession plan in place – when the guy had been there 40 years? tut tut.

Eating locally sounds like it will be of great environmental and social benefit – but is it? Tim Harford, one of my favorite economist/journalists* weighs in at Forbes.com here and the Free Exchange blog takes up the analysis here. More recently, he defends the scale of the problem we face and why carbon taxing or pricing is the only solution which works – lying as it does somewhere between the nanny state solution at one end of the spectrum telling us in minute detail what we are allowed to do, and the other end where the problem is too big, existential and distant to grasp at all.

 The food debate continues a few weeks later with Eric Schlosser (of Fast Food Nation fame) in the NYT . Again, Free Exchange weigh in with their analysis. This time I tend to disagree with FE and agree with the first commenter. More on the issues of low wage workers in the US can be found in Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed and to some extent in Felicity Lawrence’s Not on the Label, which looks at the UK and Europe. All that said, tomatoes should be grown where it makes best economic sense, in terms of output and carbon, which may well indeed exclude the US.

 At the risk of exposing my laissez-faire libertarian side and coming to blows with the more socialist arguments behind some environmental dogma, on this issue I believe it is possible to promote sustainability without sticking to a locavore diet – which at it’s heart is merely protectionism dressed up in woolly packaging.

 *I am never sure if he (plus Dubner and Levitt, Worstall, etc) are journalists who write about economics, economists who are journalists or economists who are authors and have a journalism gig on the side. As an aside, I recently found a bookshop who categorised Popular Science as “Pop Science” – is this latest slew of economics books “Pop Economics”?

An overview of Dubai’s megaprojects including the Palm Islands, Burj Dubai (world’s tallest building), Dubailand (world’s largest theme park), Business Bay and much more!

The video is over an hour long and has a bizarre euro techno soundtrack. I can see the attraction of working out there as these are not the kind of buildings getting built in Europe today.  If you’re a fan of building the biggest, the brashest, or the most ostentatious, it’s heaven but it’s not for me personally (and the soundtrack didn’t help…)

(edit: can’t manage to post the video and get it to work – anyone know an idiot proof plug-in for WP which will let me post from Youtube and Google Video?  I’ve tried Extreme Video, but it’s flummoxed me for tonight – compete brain meltdown….)

Topics covered include recycling (I covered recent figures on Leeds here),  lightbulbs, plastic bags, food, carbon allowances (DEFRA’s rough guide available here (pdf, 41pages) and the RSA’s working paper came out today (pdf, 7 pages)) and nuclear energy.

Moderator says: This webchat will start at 1030 GMT on Thursday 1 March 2007.We look forward to seeing your questions.Moderator says: Good morning and welcome to our webchat.  We’ve had a few hundred questions but we’ll try and get as many answered as we can in the hour that Mr Miliband has available.

Moderator says: We hope to be underway in a moment or two

David says: Good morning.  I have just come from a Cabinet meeting where amongst other things we talked about climate change so I hope I can reflect back some of the discussion in answering your questions this morning.

Martin Maloney: We are asked to recycle more yet my local authority (Kirklees) only collects my green recycling bin every 4 weeks against the weekly collection of my grey rubbish bin, what will be done to address this imbalance and thus make recycling far easier for the british people?

David replies:  That’s interesting because recyclying rates haave gone up four fold in the last 7 or 8 years.  I don’t know the figures for Kirklees but I would be surprised if they have not risen a lot.  I agree with you we need tomake recycling easy – that’s why we have curbside collection for 90% of households.  Each local authority has its own contract so that explains the different approach in different parts of the country.More details on this can be found on DirectgovSam Parry: I have heard you speak in the past about personal carbon allowances and personal carbon trading. I think this could have huge potential. Are there any plans for such a scheme to be implemented in the UK?

David replies: Thanks.  You can see details of the debate at my blog www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.uk.  Households are responsible for 44% of UK emissions.  The idea of personal allowances is that people who are environmentally thrifty would benefit financially and there would be a cost for the highest emitters.  There is a lot of work to be done on the details of the scheme but the Royal Society of Arts have launched a pilot to see if it works.

Andrew Candish: Dear DavidI see that Australia has banned tungsten light bulbs in favour of energy efficient ones. Would it be possible to do the same in the UK?Best wishes
AndrewDavid replies: We are seeking a Europe wide shift to lower energy lightbulbs and are discussing with industry whether there is scope for a voluntary agreement for the UK to move faster.

Julie: When will we finally ban plastic bags? People in general know the implications but still insist on taking them as they are free. I believe 250-300 supermarket bags alone are used per person per year. The poor whale that died in the Thames had bags in it’s stomach!!! Alternatives are available

David replies:  Yesterday we announced an agreement with the retailers to cut by 25% plastic bag use.  One has to look at the details because it turns out that the environmental footrprint  of a lot of paper bags is greater than the plastic bags.Read about what happens to plastics and plastic bagsBeth Hewis: Why are more wind farms rejected in the U.K by local councils than are approved and why do so many have to go to appeal before they can start being built?

David replies: Good question.  The short answer is that the planning system allows people to object.  My view is that wind turbines actually look nice and need to play a big part in raising our renewable electricity supply to 20% of the total.
Gill Rhodes: Have the government considered insisting that all new houses built have some form of alternative energy source-like solar panels? This would not only reduce our use of non renewable energy but the increase in demand would help to reduce the cost of solar panels so they were more affordable for everyone.

David replies: We have comitted that between now and 2016 we will ratchet up the building regulations so that from 2016 every new home must be zero carbon.  I think it is better to mandate a zero carbon outcome rather than insisting on particular technologies.

Carolyn: Does the House of Commons currently have energy saving devices in place? and, if so, in which areas (lighting, heating etc.) and to what extent?

David replies: Jack Straw, the Leader of the House of Commons, is pushing hard on this.  Obviously it is difficult in a building parts of which date back to the 12th century.  But at least every office now has a recycling bin – at least mine does so I assume others do.

Beth Hewis: Why is the government set on increasing incineration targets to 25% when it will simply mean less recycling and that more precious resources are lost forever, not to mention more CO2 being released as well as toxins into the atmosphere?

David replies: Our targets are for diversion from landfill – because landfill creates methane which is 20 times more toxic than carbon dioxide.  We talk about a waste hierachy – re-use where possible, then recycyle, then produce energy from waste and only as a last resort send waste to landfill.

astrojoeuk: With reference to the first question about recycling, my council (Herefordshire) refuses to recycle plastics… even those marked with the swirling recycle logo. Can Mr Milliband contact councils to ensure that they are aware of what they should be doing?

David replies: Interesting.  The problem relates to the high volume/low weight of plastic bottles.  We are certainly in contact with local authorities to see how we can overcome the problem and will be setting out proposals in our new waste strategy soon.

miss Clare bell: Instead of aiming at households to reduce their energy usage why don’t you target businesses, especially electrical retailers who have all their televisions and computers on all day every day. Why can they not just have a selection console that lets the customers switch on which product they want for a specified amount of time? All companies can reduce the amount of energy they use and pressure should be put on them to cut energy consumption.

David replies:  I think we need to do both!  Government has to get its own house in order, business has to play its part.  I think individuals want to be part of it too.Read more on what individuals can do on the Energy Saving Trust website r: We are Primary 6 at the Edinburgh Academy Junior school and we are currently studying the rainforest.We would like to have your thoughts on how long the rainforest will last if we keep using it the way we are.David replies: This is a really important problem.  De-forestation acounts for nearly 20% of greenhouse gas emissions.  I met the coaltion of rainforest nations last year and we are now working to find an international solution that delivers resources to poorer countries to combat the problem of illegal logging.

Mr Fergus Munro: I fully support the construction of new nuclear power stations in the UK. I think we should have done this 5 years ago. Please maintain your plans for the Energy Review, I have not yet read the Sullivan judgement but please keep any reconsultation focussed on resolving any procedural issues. If private industry is building and running the stations, why is cost an issue for the public?

David replies: I have a pragmatic approach to this.  Nuclear is currently 20% of our electricity supply which is the equivalent saving of 150 million tons of carbon compared to coal fired supply.  Nuclear is not a quick fix but I think it has to remain an important part of the electricity mix.

Mrs Jill Dowling: I was very disappointed to hear David Milibands uninformed views on organic produce today. Organic produce is not just a food choice, it is an environmental necessity. The production of nitrogen fertiliser releases a compound into the atmosphere which is 3oo times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Conventional farmers rely on this, organic farmers would not touch it.

David replies: I am sorry you were disapointed.  I think the growth of organics to about 4-5% of food supply is a very exciting development and I think it will continue.  However, when I was asked about the scientific consensus on health benefits, I gave the best advice from the Food Standards Agency which is that they are not yet proven.  In respect of the environmental impact there is a very interesting “shopping trolley” report on the DEFRA website which looks at different produce and different methods of production.  I think you will find it interesting.

Mr Richard Billingham: To encourage use of public transport why not make public transport free for children going to school. This will relieve early morning congestion caused by parents taking their children to school.

David replies: I went to secondary school in Leeds and remember my blue free bus pass.  In London it is free now and in my consitituency in the north east there is special provision for young people.  I will ask my friend, Douglas Alexander, the Transport Secretary, what the rules are.

Harriet Crosthwaite: Will the Government use the forthcoming White Paper to mandate smart meters?

David replies: Smart meters allow electricity companies to read your meter without having to visit and in some versions – what are called “real time displays” – allow households to see their electricity use minute by minute.  We are running some pilots at the moment which are encouraging and will certainly report back in the Energy White Paper.

Rowena Moore: I too would like to see firm steps toward personal and business carbon emissions allowances… why is it the Royal Society of Arts who are doing a pilot… seems a strange place for it to happen.. can you expand the governments position on it more please

David replies: Government is running some studies on this but I think the RSA are in quite a good position to run a pilot.  Details of our work are on the DEFRA website.

Alan Covel: We are told that britain produces 2% of the worlds polution and that china`s will increase by 12% per year. so what is the point in taxing us when any reduction we make is whiped out by china, not to mention the USA and India.

David replies: Good question.  There are two reasons for us to take a lead – first, because it is in our economic interest to becoem a low carbon economy and second because we have not got a cat in hell’s chance of persuading developing countries to make responsible decisions if we do not do the right thing ourselves.

Jon Doyle: How does the Minister believe the majority of Britain’s Energy will be generated in a hundred years time?

David replies: Hard question.  I think we will have a mix of low carbon sources – tidal, solar, wind, nuclear and probably continued gas.

rowena moore: why is more pressure not being put on supermarkets directly to reduce food air miles and packaging waste. We seem to take a very hands off attitude to this and they do what will gross them the biggest profit – which is not necessarily best for the environment or for our agricultural economy.

David replies:  We have agreed with the supermarkets to develop an environmental labelling scheme that allows shoppers to see the envrionmental impact of what they are buying.  But don’t forget that Kenyan roses flown to Britain have a much lower environmental footprint than roses grown in Europe in non-renewable energy sourced greenhouses.For more details on the Government’s plans you can read a speech I gave on Mondayjohn furniss: why did you lie about the turkey flu NOT coming from Hungary…before the facts were investigated, what or who were you trying to protect?

David replies:  I did not lie.  I explained clearly to the House of Commons that the turkeys were not Hungarian chicks (February 5th).  At that stage all avenues were being explored but the most likely source was wild birds – the source of every outbreak in Europe.  When the leading hypothesis of wild bird transmission became less likely, as a result of scientific investigation,  we immediately said so.For more information see these responses to the recent outbreak of avian influenza in Suffolk Tim Duke: Now consumers are starting to recycle, what plans does the government have to get businesses to recycle more, especially as the commercial sector produces vast amounts more waste than householders?

David replies: The figures show higher levels of recycyling by the commercial sector but we obviously want to push further and are looking at how we can make most progress on some of the biggest waste streams.

John Berry: Will the government support measures to faclitate a more dispersed model of energy generation? Should the UK’s farmers be looking to diversify into the production of energy for their local communities?

David replies: Yes.  Distributed energy, including combined heat and power and micro-generation, are important parts of the Energy White Paper.  As for farmers, I said in my speech to the National Farmer’s Union conference on Monday that we wanted to support the use of anaerobic digestion technology as a source of energy.

Chris Preist: Please could you say a bit more about some of the promising options being discussed in your meeting with the coalition of rainforest nations, you mentioned in your reply to Primary 6? Thankyou.

David replies: The essential deal is to get resources from the richer north to support sustainable forest management in the south.  The German presidency of the G8 are taking this forward.  The key is obviously to combat illegal logging by creating alternative income flows.

rlemmy: If the government is so concerned with climate change,why have you given the go ahead for the expansion of major airports in the uk,eg Heathrow when it takes the average 747 series boeing 3000 gallons just to take off,and over 30000 gallons over a ten hour flight. With hundreds of flights per day from each airport, why are`nt you chasing big business with the same gusto as the motorist.

David replies:  Who said all these were easy questions!  Aviation represents about 5% of UK greenhouse gases but is rising faster than any other.  We believe aviation must play its part in beating cimate change.  All future developments, following the statement by the Transport secretary in December, will be subject to an emissions test. The key in the end is for overall emissions to come down.For more information about our work on climate change read my speech to the Green Alliance on Tuesdaymr andrew pick: i work as at pat engineer (electrical testing) , and i work out of hours quite often in offices. as im working in these offices at night, or on weekends the amount of pc’s i find that are left on locked, just so people can save a few minutes logging on in a morning, is obsene. if you clamped down on this the amount of electricity saved would be enormous, thus reducing carbon emmisions.
just thought you might be interested to know how big this problem really was, there are after all thousands of offices in the country, work with the electricity companys and fine the wasters.

David replies: This is a really good point.  The legislation we are promoting at European level on standby switches will help tackle this problem.

Michelle Slater: As Honda launch their new “green” livery for the 2007 F1 season, how important do you think getting sport involved in environmental issues is? It seems logical from a motor racing perspective, but would it be a good idea to encourage other sports to spread the word on saving our planet?Thanks
MichelleDavid replies: That is an interesting idea.  Some of the new stadiums – I’m an Arsenal fan – have got high environmental standards.  Let me think how we can rope them in.

David Norman: How will your Climate Change Bill influence the behaviour of any future UK government that’s less committed to tackling climate change than the current government?

David replies: It will create a legislative requirement on all future governments. I think it will be an international landmark when it is published in a couple of weeks time – the first country in the world to establish a clear emissions reduction path between now and 2050.

Tanya: We are asked to ‘do our bit’ but it is a fight all the way – not enough recycling collections, planning decisions against renewable energy – I would like to put a solar panel on my property but have had a battle with planning and now discover that the DTI grant runs out of funds each month within an hour! Why is it that when we try to follow governments advice and do our bit other departments know us back? when will all the departments work together so that we can make some headway?

David replies: We are trying to take on the problems you highlight, for example form October 1st the planning rules will changed to make it as easy to install a wind turbine as a satellite dish and to be fair, recycyling is rising fast.  One thing that will help will be a “carbon calculator” which will be launched in the next couple of months and allow people to see their own carbon footprints and give practical reduce it.

George Percy: I’m doing a university dissertation on the perceptions of woody biomass energy and its promotion by the government and would like to know if the government plans to promote biomass more actively (in line with the rest of Europe), and if so, how?

David replies: Short answer yes.  We have a biomass strategy and will be updating it in the next few months.  Sound like your PhD might help us!

Miss Rosie Harper: My name is Rosie Harper and I am 11 years old.I am writing to tell you that me and my friend Sophie that we feel strongly about the Global warming.If it is possable we would like to have a meeting with you to say what we could do to help the world by saving animals and to get our school and other schools to help the world to be a better place and save living things.

David replies: I try to get around as many schools as possible.  The best thing for the school might be to join the Eco Schools Programme.  If you send me an email via the DEFRA website we can see if I am going to be in your area in the near future.

David says: I have really enjoyed doing this.  Thanks for your questions and I hope you liked some of the answers.

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