Scrutiny Cttee Meeting on sustainability, Friday 9th April

I was invited along to give evidence to the scrutiny committee of Birmingham City Council last week. There was a pre-meeting in the week before, which is kind of like a rehearsal so you understand what to do on the day when it's in public and as it was my first appearance of this kind, I was quite glad of that and also the briefing I got from the helpful staff members - I certainly am not one to dismiss the worth of public servants.

Our work on the core strategy had certainly not gone unnoticed - our 25-page response to the consultation is available in the downloads section on our website - so I produced a summary of this for the committee and was asked to speak in response to what Sandy Taylor (Head of Sustainability and Climate Change) said to the committee in his report.

There is work to congratulate the city council on - their work on Combined Heating and Power (CHP) has been very good in the centre of the city and there was also a report on this, while the Birmingham Energy Savers project is truly pioneering and not only will it have a great effect on the homes concerned, but should also sustain a considerable number of local jobs, too. I saw my role at this meeting partly as one of saying "look what can be done when you show some ambition, so let's have more of it".

The biggest areas of controversy in what I said turned out to be on supporting local shops v supermarkets, the incinerator (which some councillors still believe is green!!) versus other forms of dealing with waste and transport, as these are the areas on which the council is doing worst in terms of sustainability.

After so many defeats in fighting off supermarket planning applications recently, the council had to be challenged on why they talk about boosting local shops, but do nothing to protect or support them. There was some support for this amongst the elected representatives, but Cllr Deirdre Alden took issue with this "idealistic notion" that we can go back to have corner shops within walking distance as most people can't afford to shop there! We're not just talking about corner shops, though, but vibrant local shopping streets with different types of independently owned retailers. People would in fact, find that overall this would be just as affordable and if you take out the need for a car to get there, that's even more money saved. See Tescopoly on food poverty.

The same councillor also challenged me on the incinerator, as she'd had a tour of it and been informed by Veolia that it was in fact very green as it generates electricity. In fact, I informed them that from a climate change perspective, incineration is worse than gas- or coal-fired power stations for generating electricity! I suggested that what we need is a truly ambitious programme of community recycling ventures all over the city, dealing with our resource use to make sure nothing is wasted, creating jobs and stopping the health-damaging emissions from Tyseley.

Cllr Alden also seemed to think that because there are places with no reliable bus service now and because the roads are too dangerous to cycle on (she fell off once and will never cycle again), that we won't be able to get people out of cars. Fortunately there are other people on the council with a better understanding of integrated transport, but unless the most ambitious parts of the city's vision for movement, connected city and cycling strategy are out in place urgently, not only could we suffer more gridlock as recently, but when oil prices rise even further, some people are going to be really stuck!

Are we going to get more ambitious measures from the council to hit their CO2 reduction targets? I really hope so, but it needs to be an ambition that is taken on by the whole cabinet, not just the officers and one or two members.

2 Men Inhabiting Different Worlds

On Tuesday I attended 2 events organised by the city council. Firstly there was the Birmingham transport summit where we had many flashy presentations on Birmingham's future connectivity and the importance of international links to bring inward investment. Then, in the evening I went along to receive an award for the green community work we'd done through our Faith and Climate Change project and also heard a talk by Rob Hopkins of the transition towns initiative on how we need to re-localise our supply chains and move away from a dependence on oil.

At the transport summit we had a new cabinet member for transport leading it, in councillor Huxtable, and there was a marked change from the previous incumbent. Cycling was mentioned far more times than last year and there was more of an emphasis on walking, too, but still the main overarching obsessions are with large-scale vanity projects, such as HS2, the airport runway and the new “gateway” station at New Street. It is a bizarre world that the leader of the council, Mike Whitby, lives in when he talks about the need for consistency and there not being contradictions in their policy, yet can talk about cutting CO2 emissions and sustainability and doubling the number of passengers at the airport by bringing in more people from the South East in one breath.

I asked a question in the second part of the event (after Councillor Whitby had left, unfortunately) about the rise in oil prices due to the problems with supply and the unsustainable nature of planning to use motor cars and planes in the (relatively near) future. Cllr Huxtable passed this question on to an officer who had been to Abu Dhabi recently and I was surprised by his frankness when he said that supplies are likely to run out in 2040 or 2045 and that although there are other ways of powering motor vehicles, planes are much more difficult. How any sensible leadership can put all their eggs in a basket that is going to be empty in less than 30 years seems incredible – what legacy are they leaving behind them?

The quote that they put up about leaving the city a more beautiful place than they had found it felt rather like a sick joke in this context.

In the evening Rob Hopkins spoke eloquently about the transition movement and the projects springing up all over the country where people are trying to re-connect with their local areas and that, as much as being an environmental movement, this is a social movement too, as people who've done it talk more about the friends they've made than the carbon they've saved. Once again we saw figures about how quickly oil is going to run out and some reminders of the ridiculousness of how our economy works at the moment with the same goods travelling back and forth from country to country needlessly, wasting precious resources and disconnecting consumers from the producers.

There certainly are some impressive things being done with local currency schemes, energy generation ventures and food growing initiatives, although he admits that it's only a small part of what needs to be done. He also spoke of his admiration of the work being done by Localise West Midlands in promoting real policy solutions on the economic changes that are needed. On how to fight the power of supermarkets, I found his answer a little unconvincing, as at the moment there seems to be no stopping them and getting people to change habits when their local shops have already gone is very hard indeed.

In the question and answer session I once again got my question in, this time about the need for campaigning when it comes to trying to stop politicians doing the stupid things that they are prone to, such as those mentioned above. He admitted that this was very much needed too, but he had become burned out after doing this for a few years himself, so different types of activities are all needed.

So, are we doing the hard stuff here at BFoE and leaving the nice fun stuff to the transition groups? We used to do a lot of practical things, too (and still do in places), but when covering a city the size of Birmingham, cannot keep such a focus on small areas as a transition group for Kings Heath or Sutton can. It is a real challenge to get people involved in campaigning and policy work as it's not as glamorous, nor are the results as immediate, but it really is a crucial area of work, so we appreciate all the volunteers who get involved with our group to help it happen.

We also got an award on the night for our work in being a green community organisation. Here's a picture of me getting it from Rob Hopkins:

When the leader of your council lives in such a state of denial as ours and his deputy (who was there to introduce the event with Rob Hopkins, but didn't stay to hear what he said) claims to be a champion of climate change and sustainability, but goes along with all those policies too, you need a strong campaigns group with a positive alternative vision of the future. The difference we can make depends on the support we get, so please come along and get involved if you can, or if you are unable to contribute your time and expertise, become a financial supporter instead.

Joe Peacock

Conference reflections - big society

On the opening evening of our national conference this year, we had two speakers; Ken Livingstone who provided us with few surprises and a fairly safe speech for that audience and Phillip Blond, who is the architect of David Cameron's big society idea and one of the most provocative speakers you could wish to hear.

Now provocative doesn't necessarily mean good and a lot of the time people were just tearing their hair out at the stuff he was coming out with, such as re-legalising hunting as a way of ensuring conservation of the countryside and the fact that Tories have always been caring with the rights of those working the land very well looked after through history (sorry don't remember the exact details, but it was dismissed by some knowledgeable friends, anyway). I should watch it again to remind myself as the links to both talks and the Q&A session are available here.

However, some of the things he was saying were actually quite sensible - about talking to people about the areas around them and ensuring they feel they can have an effect on those things they care about. The trouble is that he didn't seemed to have a clue that this is what FoE is all about anyway and thought that we were just another environmental campaigns organisation who only ever talk about climate change in the big scary international sense and don't talk to people about local environmental justice.

The other problem I had with what he was saying was that in all the talk of rolling back the state and creating local control, he also acknowledged the need to get away from the big business model, but there was nothing to suggest how this could be achieved unless by state regulation. It's all very well talking about mutuals and cooperatives, with local suppliers helping each other, but when they're constantly faced with poorly regulated, incredibly wealthy multinational companies as competition, it is very hard for them to succeed.

This can be seen with the demise of local shops and smaller businesses all over the country and especially the terrible state of the farming industry being dictated to by supermarkets. A really important test of whether the green measures we take will lead to a better, fairer society will be whether there is a proper Green New Deal with sustainable local jobs created, or whether big business will steamroller in and take all the profits, while employing people on short-term contracts and then discarding them as soon as possible.

If the Big Society just means cutting the state, putting millions of people out of work and expecting business or volunteers to take over all of this socially valuable work that is currently done by public servants, it will not create any kind of just or sustainable society. If, however, it is done as a reshaping of the way we value control over business practices to ensure justice and freedom from exploitation, with curbs on the power of corporations and a move to more cooperative and mutually beneficial models of business, that is something many of us would sign up to.

Birmingham Friends of the Earth has always done the volunteering part of the big society, because we recognise the value you get from interacting with people and making a difference to your surroundings. What we want from government is support in that for all third sector organisations who do amazing work around the country, not funding cuts and also a recognition that the real power is financial not political. That means the first priority to creating a just society where people will want to take part is to use state power to create those business conditions that favour local small-scale enterprise and to ensure that the most polluting, unsustainable industries do not leave all of us to pick up the bill in future generations.

Joe Peacock

Extremist? Moi?

The Birmingham Post ran an editorial yesterday attacking our position on the runway extension at BIA and stating, amongst other things, "how out of touch they are with the real world" and asking us to come clean about our agenda.

Now when I was on the radio recently, airport chief Paul Kehoe uttered the legendary phrase "I don't know what planet Friends of the Earth are on" and this seems a remarkably similar line of attack.

The accepted "wisdom" around making economic policy in the West Midlands all seems to be based on there being limitless resources that we can carry on exploiting regardless. What kind of real world is that, exactly?

The real world is the one in which recently the High Court ruled that the Aviation White Paper of 2003, on which all current expansion is based, was obsolete because it does not comply with the Climate Change Act of 2008. It is also based on oil costing $10 a barrel, which is never going to be the case again and the Stern report 2006 also indicates that the economic case for dealing with climate change should be re-examined so as to mitigate now and not allow business as usual.

The concerted efforts by those driven by ideological opposition to government intervention in markets to tackle climate change or short-term business interests to find some real evidence of collusion or fiddling the figures in "climategate" have all failed, so we now have to get on with dealing with this problem. With consensus shown by the leaders of the three main parties on this (if not all the solutions), we are not saying it is time to ground all flights, but that expansion is not the answer when resources are limited and the business case does not stack up.

Localise West Midlands have also blogged on this in support today and their points about "a fuel-scarce future" are as key as any on the impacts of climate change. Prices will only go one way, whether through taxes or demand outstripping supply in the near future, so to rely on affordable oil for air travel is unwise to say the least, as is thinking that biofuels can replace oil without having a devastating effect on the world's eco-systems and capabilities to grow sufficient food.

Unless aviation plays its part in cutting CO2 emissions, other sectors will have to make much deeper cuts, so where would you choose to make those cuts? Also, aviation is currently massively subsidised and ticket prices have fallen compared to the cost of living over the past decade, whereas trains and bus ticket prices have gone up considerably and are among the highest in Europe.

The economic benefits of aviation are wildly exaggerated, as we have pointed out on many occasions. Even Heathrow's claims to make the economy money have been debunked and London is the one place that doesn't have a tourism deficit from aviation. To say only areas that have a large international airport from where people can fly non-stop to destinations all over the world can be successful econmically is also to ignore data from all over the country.

Therefore, our agenda is simple - don't subsidise high carbon polluting forms of transport, such as aviation and give local people a fair deal by spending money from the public purse on projects that have a real benefit.

This doesn't mean we are being extreme, but we want the real story behind the claims on economic benefits to be examined more carefully. If we are to build a long-term sustainable economy that is not dependent on a fast-disappearing resource, we should not be looking to increase airport capacities now, but be planning to use the skills of people in the region to build local markets that are not dependent on aviation.

Once new government guidance is drawn up that relies on the latest scientific and economic data around climate change, oil supplies and low-carbon alternatives we can decide how to best manage demand for aviation. Rushing into decisions to fund extra capacity now would be foolish and waste valuable financial resources at a time when the public purse is being squeezed hard.