Climate change policy makers need much more vision

One of the reasons I moved to the EU was to get closer to the action on the climate change front. The UK is demonstrating scintillating leadership in driving the renewable energy and response to climate change agenda. But as noble and courageous as this leadership appears to be there are some serious shortfalls. The most glaringly obvious area is that of transport. Policy seems to be driven by the EC directive on biofuels.

I find this policy to be sadly short on vision. This policy only focuses on vehicles, internal combustion engines and standard fuel types. There is no incentive what so ever to make radical changes. We need radical changes. True, significant change requires step changes in orders of magnitude. The scale of the breakthroughs we need are something like a 90% reduction in current emissions per passenger mile.

One of the most important elements of Leadership is that of vision. A biofuels based policy assumes that there will be no changes to transport technology or fuel systems. It addresses the how and not the why. Why, I ask, not develop policy that enables us to address the core problem? I believe the primary objective should be to reduce emissions per passenger mile (by an order of magnitude).

Here is some vision for the future. I wear my futurist cap with pride. Imagine wave machines compressing air into cylinders and these cylinders being ferried to service stations where vehicles running on compressed air can change "fuel canisters" of compressed air. The first generation of these vehicles would be hybrid electrical vehicles with retrogenerative braking systems that maximised efficiency by storing "waste energy". Have a look at innovative companies like MDI. With the exception of the initial energy investment in the wave machines, infrastructure and all the other supporting technology, this approach would result in negligible emissions of ghg's to atmosphere.

The current policy doesn't help these innovations at all. On the contrary, it looks more as if the current policy was designed to entrench the existence of oil companies, and their massive record profits (at the expense of the environment) and the tax revenues that they generate, and the existing jobs they support. Having worked for one of these massive oil companies I understand the thinking. I made a choice, for better or for worse, to make a difference and align my skills and talents and passion to supporting the sustainability agenda.

I'd like to see much more support from governments. Governments appear to be the only one's in the current philospophical order of civilisation who can make the difference and break the short sighted and myopic view that many businesses have. Businesses are driven by profit and it doesn't help when the only policies in place are supporting their old and outdated ideas, just because they make money out of them - while everyone gasps and asks "why, oh, why, is no one doing anything serious about stopping climate change?"