By Charlotte King and Laura Husband
Climate change and the environment did not feature highly in the General Election, with the economy taking centre stage. But at least some of the public must feel concerned about the environment, having voted in the first green MP in British Political history, leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas.
Simon and Ed did not agree on a few things.
So what are the three main party’s views on the big issues of the environment and climate change today? Laura Husband and Charlotte King went to the Climate Change debate hosted by the Guardian a week before the General Election to find out: In order of appearance in the first piece of audio, here’s what Greg Clark from the Conservatives, Ed Miliband from the Labour Party and Simon Hughes from the Liberal Democrats had to say on some major climate change issues.
Expanding Heathrow
Expanding London’s Heathrow airport has been a hotly-contested issue. Labour’s general consensus has been ‘for’ the airport, the Liberal Democrats ‘against’ the airport and the Conservatives against but in favour of an airport elsewhere.
Will the Tory-Lib Dem alliance increase air travel to and from the UK? Picture credit: Axwel on Flickr
Climate Skeptics
A number of climate skeptics have spoken out against the existence of man made climate change following the controversial emails sent by a climate scientist from the University of East Anglia stating that some of the tree data was a ‘trick.’ There are also members of the three main parties who admit to being skeptical about climate change. So how do the three main parties deal with climate change skeptism?
Greg had to defend the Tories
Present climate change policy
Prior to the general election, Labour’s carbon emissions policy was to reach a 34 per cent reduction against 1990 levels by 2020. But did the other main parties think this was realistic or indeed enough?
Peak Oil
Peak oil is the point in time when there is no more petroleum in the ground to be extracted. There is uncertainty about when peak oil will be reached, what to do in the mean time and what to do when it is finally happens among the major parties.
Have we reached peak oil or is it yet to come? Image credit: Chad Teer
Commentator at the Guardian George Monbiot asks how we will reduce fossil fuel consumption, in particular oil.
Whether to use the UK’s entire quota of oil before it runs out or whether to save some of it is a dividing question among the major parties.
George Monbiot wrote the book 'Heat'. Image credit: JK the Unwise
Climate modeling
There is debate among scientists about how to measure climate change, and different models produce varying degrees of environmental change. A physicist questioned the model the politicians have been working with and suggests they should be using an alternative, which would be more accurate.