Few days ago climate talks in Paris, which were opened 30th November 2015, came to end. It was the biggest meeting of our generation, held to address climate challenge. However, some participants were criticized for contradicting the main goal of this conference.
This is about David Cameron and other British ministers, who took a part in Paris talks. They were accused to use environment-unfriendly transport mode to come to the meeting, opened in order to find environmental issues solutions. While other participants used a train, Eurostar, the British delegates arrived by plane.
This event afforded ground for blaming David Cameron and his ministers for hypocrisy. While Cameron states that his government as the greenest one ever, he uses the least efficient way to travel and contributes to climate change. The flight from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle airport caused the emission of carbon, estimated at 122 kg CO2 per person, which can be compared with charging 740 iPods. At the same time, this figure is 11 times less in comparison with carbon emission caused by train, which equates 10.9 kg CO2 per person.
Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit underlined, that there is an irony in British energy minister's actions. While Amber Rudd claims to be concerned about climate changes and to conduct policy in terms of the reduction of carbon emission by 2020, she has contributed to the atmosphere pollution significantly by flying from London to Paris.
Additionally, Craig Bennett of Friends of the Earth says that government, which claims to take care of environment, involve communities in order to rule power generation in their area as well as make production and consumption more energy efficient and behaves in opposite way, is totally hypocritical.
The point is that during last several months the government of the United Kingdom has been conducting policy, which contradicts governmental green agenda. The subsidies for onshore wind and solar power were cut, which has already made a negative impact on British economy. In this case, energy minister Amber Rudd states that "renewable energy can stand on its own two feet" and require no subsidies or state investments.
Such governmental position was criticized not only by politicians, but also by citizens. On 29th of November a large demonstration was performed in London. More than 50,000 people took a part in this protest and urged the government to switch its policy from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
What is more, professor Anne Glover, the former chief scientific adviser to the European commission, said that the United Kingdom lost its leading position in climate talks due to the cut of renewables state support. In addition, David Cameron was noticed to ignore environmental and climate issue in his speeches, performed in the government.
At the same time, he urged businesses to tackle ecological problems, saying that this issue is too big and complicated to be solved by the governments. Thus, according to Cameron, businesses and private donors are to enable large-scale investments in clean technologies.
The discussion touching inefficiency of British environmental policy was held at the same time with the plans of the UK to construct a third runaway in Heathrow. Though this plan was met with optimism at first, opinions became diverse with the beginning of Paris talks. The point is that concerns about the negative impact of this runaway on air quality appeared.
In summary, British energy and environmental policy is facing critics. The discussion about this issue became especially keen in connection with Paris climate talks, which were held recently. As the British delegation has arrived by plane, which contributed to air pollution, the UK government was accused to be hypocritical. Cameron and his ministers claim that their policy is to address environmental issue; however, their actions are quite opposite.
