Capturing that elusive successful green agenda

Every political party at the moment seems to be looking at environment as a way to consolidate their position for the next general election, and Labour is no exception. I attended an environment seminar at the Progress Annual Conference, and some very controversial issues were discussed.

The first point to note is that, of the 30 or so people at the seminar, almost all of them were men (as were the 3 panellists, and chair), interesting as I wouldn't have considered this as a particularly male dominated area. But I suppose that calls for a whole other blog entry!

The first panellist to speak was Paul Flatters, Managing Director of Opinion Leader, a polling organisation. He has been researching the public mood on green issues for over 20 years. Surprisingly, he said there is a strong argument that green issues will not have a big impact on the next election (as opposed to 56% of those polled who think that crime will shape their voting behaviour). He said that an impact on voting is more likely in a negative way - a lot of anti climate change proposals are vote losers. He thinks that the main way environment will be important is in its repositioning of the Conservatives, as it can be used as a way to make voting Conservative more credible again, and seen as more outward looking. It is interesting then, that even with the Conservative's big push on envionmental issues, Labour and Conservatives are pretty equal in the polls on this issue - it is the Liberal Democrats who are considered to have the best environmental policies.

Martyn Williams, from Friend of the Earth, said that it is not just down to Cameron that Labour has lost the lead on environmental issues, he thinks Labour are just not performing well enough. He thinks it is important to focus on the fact that we can cut greenhouse gas emissions by spending government money, not just taxing, for example by providing people with grants to insulate their homes. Where Cameron has been successful with environmental issues, it is important to note that many Conservative councils are opposing wind farms, which obviously slightly diffuses the message.

Phil Woolas MP, Minister for (or against!) Climate Change, said that we have to create more of an understanding about the economics of climate change. He spoke of how the UK is leading the global debate in the area, and will be one of the few countries in the world that meets their Kyoto target.

A conclusion from the debate was that there needs to be some upside about environmental changes, it can't just be about stopping people doing things, after all it would be very difficult to win an election that way.