Sorry for the sad headlines, but why not follow the crowd - after all, the name just asks for it, and I’m afraid to say that my respect for the man has not increased dramatically following his performance of the other day.

This was billed as ‘the greenest budget yet’. Probably the cleverest part of the whole speech, as this wasn’t exactly difficult. What’s more, the green ‘bit’ started with some promise, as Alistair Darling confirmed that the government takes global warming very seriously, and recognised the importance of acting, and acting now…. except he then went on to pretty much postpone all the acting till a later date, immediately ruining the effect of this statement and, for me at any rate, preparing us for a series of disappointing promises.

This is what we got:

  • The proposed increase in fuel duty by 2p is delayed until October in order to help the economy
  • The government will ask the Climate Change committee to advise them on whether CO2 reduction targets for 2050 should be raised from 60% to 80%
  • Carbon budgets will be announced alongside the budget as of next year
  • Energy companies are to encourage us to reduce our electricity consumption
  • If supermarkets don’t take action on reducing the use of plastic bags, a charge will be imposed on them as of 2009
  • £26 million has been allocated to a Green Homes Service
  • New non-domestic buildings must be CO2 neutral by 2019
  • Revenue from plane duty is increased by 10%
  • New tax bands will be introduced to punish those with polluting cars / encourage the purchase of less-polluting cars
  • As of 2010, a special first year charge will be introduced - new cars emitting under 130 grammes of CO2 will be free of tax for that year, whilst high-polluting cars will have an increased tax - effectively a forecourt tax.

So how would I translate all of the above? Lots of promises to do things in the future - hmmm, not much urgency there, threats about plastic bags (apparently to keep Daily Mail readers happy), good intentions about zero Carbon businesses, a bit more money from the airlines (I wonder where it will be spent? Maybe it can go towards building the new runway…), no car tax for green cars in their first year as of 2010 (wow, an incentive!), and punishment for gas guzzlers.

Frankly, it’s not much, and it certainly doesn’t reflect the statement that ‘the need to take action is urgent’. I know that things take time to put in place in government, but this is a budget that commits to do not very much over the next 2 years, and to talk about doing some other things in the future. And, of course, there’s no real ‘carrot’ to encourage us to take action ourselves. In fact the famous system of grants for microgeneration seems to have vanished!

I know we’re entering a recession, that money is tight, that the government’s priority is to try to see us through it safe, but reducing our CO2 emissions gives us an opportunity to save money, something we need to do right now. What’s more it is urgent to do things now, not next year, and certainly not in 2016!

This may have been the greenest budget yet, but it won’t make a difference. The UK, leading Europe in its apathy towards reducing emissions.