A curious thing happened on the way back from the UN's Climate Change Summit.
In his speech to Tuesday's one-day gathering of world leaders in New York, David Cameron stressed Britain's commitment to push for a legally binding international agreement on tackling climate change in 2015.
Activists responded that the Prime Minister should live up to his rhetoric and commit to phasing out highly polluting coal power within a decade.
And then, rather unexpectedly, he appeared to come close to doing just that. A post on Twitter from the UK's team at the UN attributed to Mr Cameron a firm commitment to phase out existing coal power stations over the next 10 to 15 years.
The low-key nature of the announcement instantly made environmental groups suspicious and they are now pressing for more details. But it shows why many campaigners feel confused and frustrated by the UK Government when it comes to the matter of tackling climate change. How committed are ministers to leading internationally on this issue?
Prior to 2010, there was some cautious hope among environmental lobbyists about the Conservatives' belated enthusiasm for tackling climate change. Remember that image makeover David Cameron gave the party logo, which briefly became a green oak tree? (It is now a Union flag in the shape of a tree.) Remember the huskies in the North Pole? Remember the cycling to work (with the brief case following behind in a car)?
Since then, the UK Government has fallen short of many people's hopes. Mr Cameron appointed a Chancellor who does not want Britain to lead the world on tackling climate change, and for two years an environment minister, Owen Paterson, who regarded the environmental lobby as the "green blob" and provoked suspicions in office that he was a climate change sceptic (now out of office, he is to give the keynote address next month at Lord Lawson's climate change-doubting Global Warming Policy Foundation). Mr Cameron's government opposes an EU-wide renewables target for 2030 and the Prime Minister provoked conflict with the LibDems last year with hints he would scrap green levies on fuel bills (in the end, a £50 cut in levies was met from general taxation). On the other hand, solar power and renewable electricity capacity has increased in England and Wales and the government has established the Green Investment Bank.
Mr Cameron insisted this week that economic growth and tackling global warming could go hand in hand, and indeed many campaigners also see opportunities in Britain's transformation into a low-carbon economy. But the Prime Minister's claim that efforts to rein in global warming could be assisted by developing shale gas (which produces fewer carbon emissions than coal but more than renewables), met with frustration from campaigners.
David Cameron says he believes he has lived up to his famous promise to head "the greenest government ever", but he will have to achieve a good deal more before campaigners endorse that view.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article