The real carbon polluters

Can Mr Blair justify his personally inflated carbon bubble? Are long-haul flights and R&R forever henceforth incompatible?

Yet if we cancelled all flights right now we would barely make an iota’s difference to greenhouse gases and global warming. The real problem is literally much closer to home: just over a quarter of all carbon emissions are associated with our homes and what we do in them. The impact of our domestic energy use is 10 times that of the total air transport industry.

This month we have seen initial discussions between the government and housebuilders to plan for the production of zero carbon homes. There is no doubt that it can be done and there is the potential for new homes to be net producers of energy which can feed into the national grid.

But what about the majority of us who live in existing, often old properties that are the most significant cause of the problem?

Before answering this question it must be said that power stations are responsible for much of our carbon generation, rather than our homes. The power generation industry needs cleaning up as a matter of urgency. Coal-fired plants, our traditional and staple energy source (which we still have in abundance), need urgent retro-fitting with efficient boilers and carbon capture devices.

There is much we can do in our homes to reduce carbon consumption. But persuading 20m householders to change the habits of a lifetime is tough. One issue that is not talked about is our use of gas, which contributes directly to greenhouse gases. Can we imagine a future in which our gas infrastructure will run empty? Clean energy generated at central power plants with carbon sequestration, and locally generated renewable energies may well be the only option.

For now, energy efficient light bulbs, judicial use of the off switch and a lot of hard thinking… please!