The cost of climate control
DEEP in the Energy Policy Group's 74-page report on how this Bailiwick should respond to the threats posed by climate change is a line that goes to the heart of the matter: 'Guernsey cannot solve this problem alone.'
DEEP in the Energy Policy Group's 74-page report on how this Bailiwick should respond to the threats posed by climate change is a line that goes to the heart of the matter: 'Guernsey cannot solve this problem alone.'
It goes on to say that this island's own actions will have little impact on climate change unless they are part of a concerted international effort.
The political significance of that admission will become clearer in the decades to come as islanders are faced with paying the very real costs of battling carbon emissions.
Green carbon taxes on fuels, vehicle emissions taxes on cars and an increase in electricity prices as greener sources are utilised are all proposals under serious consideration, along with expensive new political bodies to chivvy the policy through and heavy investment in renewable energy and cable links.
No one should be under any illusion that this battle will be cheap. Indeed, the States own motto is to be 'Spend to save'.
As those costs move from being simply ideas to the painful reality of each household's bottom line, the resolve to continue the struggle will be severely tested.
At each step the States must ensure islanders remain committed to the cause. For, as Gordon Brown is discovering, governments tinker with tax systems at their peril.
Historically, the island's has been relatively simple. Adding a level of green complexity will not be popular if islanders cannot see real substance behind the ideas and a genuine environmental benefit. The merest hint of an eco-tax being used to fill general States coffers would be fatal.
And it will be especially tough to keep the momentum going here if the world's governments fail to show that the pain is being shared across the planet.
A replacement agreement for Kyoto is due to be agreed in Copenhagen next year. If the major industrial nations cannot ratify a new treaty before the current one expires in 2012 it will be all the harder to convince islanders that our drop in the ocean is going to have a genuine effect on climate change.
