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A housing minister... with experience

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Who's worried about our new housing minister's knowledge of the sector? Does Caroline Flint know her Hips from her codes, her EPs from her EPCs? Well I've discovered conclusive proof that she has plenty of industry experience. Just have a look at this page of her website.

Adair Turner interview on targets

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The Government's new climate change watchdog Adair Turner turned up on Radio 4's today show this morning. Adair announced that the committee he chairs will be getting immediately stuck into a report on whether the 60% reduction for 2050 is enough. "We will report in December whether that
is adequate or whether a higher figure may be required," he said. Adair said that the "more stretching target" was the 26-32% reduction by 2020. "The difficulty is to do it with existing technologies," he said. Turner also defended the rolling five year targets that are part of the climate change bill as emissions will vary from year to year.

Blogging from Brussels

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Just to inform you that my new blogging partner Michael Willoughby will be zipping out of the gleaming St Pancras station tomorrow to report from the EU Sustainable Energy Week in Brussels. I think it will be an interesting opportunity to get under the skin of what's coming out of Brussels. Given the influence European policy has it's relatively unreported territory.

Red, White, Blue and Green

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Do I feel a little national pride in my breast? After discovering that the UK is not crashing out of the EPBD implementation, indeed is leading the continent in such innovations as the Code for Sustainable Homes, now I see that both British Land and Land Securities have made it to the list of the Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies.

A weekend of wind

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It's absolutely all about wind farms this week. Figures in The Sunday Times were instructive. 165 farms already operating 1,944 turbines, another 34 under construction, 118 have planning consent and 220 are under consideration. Time for a pat on the back and a cheer? Of course not.

Hutton hits out

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Strong stuff from Will Hutton in yesterday's Observer taking to task the structure of our banking system for the collapse in the markets over the past week. He's stinging in his criticism of the inherent greed at work that has taken economies to the brink of all-out recession. "We need the financiers to serve business and the economy rather than be its master," he writes. There is a one-sided bargain between banks and the rest of the economy, according to Hutton which sees the form profit to ridiculous degrees when times are good but then look to Government, the taxpayers and the rest of business to bail them out when things go pear-shaped.

The Weekly Green Gauge

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Here come the turbines ... or do they?

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Challenging targets from Europe on Wednesday. That's a 16% cut in emissions from buildings over 2005 levels (our emissions crept up by 1.25% in 2006) a 20% share of energy from renewables about 2020 and a 15% cut overall (covering heat, electricity and transport.)

In defence of the precautionary principle

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A lot of anger and tired, tired arguments and fighting on Guardian comment is free site reporting on Yvo de Boer's speech at Davos. Give it up, one might say. All of us who are concerned with climate change have had to grapple with difficult science and decide what side we are on. I've been on both (it's a nasty thought) and often in the middle.

Morals and measurement

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Interesting lead report on last night's Newsnight. It was raising the question "Is growth good?" in the week that the recession word reared its head. Up popped Andrew Simms from the New Economics Forum and Paul Ekins from the Green Fiscal Commission to question fundamental economic tenets. Simms made the distinction between growth and development, in the sense that the former gives no indication of happiness and worth whilst the latter allows for meeting the needs of populations. Economists are not measuring enough, argued Simms. I wonder how this argument transfers to construction. Can we cost for good development rather than bad?

New York Times video (part 2)