Turn Off Your Lights So I Can Fly

Interesting discussion on Newsnight last night, as 'Ethical Man' Justin Rowlatt came to the end of his year-long experiment to lead a better life. Gavin Esler was joined by Environment Secretary David Milibland, Peter Ainsworth (Con), Chris Huhne (Lib Dem) and Siân Berry (Green). Also from Denmark by 'sceptical environmentalist' Bjorn Londberg.

Amid the discussion of air travel – the Tories' proposal to curtail domestic flights, general agreement from the Lib Dems that air travel should be as high or higher priority as changing the lightbulbs, criticism of the Government policy of building more runways and terminals while berating us all for leaving our VCRs on standby, and so on – two things struck me.

First, Milli said in effect that air travel had been fixed because Gordon had increased Air Passenger Duty. Now a £5 or £10 take-off tax is not going to discourage anyone from flying (unless they're poor). But it is going to contribute significantly to Gordon's bucket of money. Will he use it to provide better public transport (any public transport) where I live? Will he 'eck as like. It's just another tax on 'hard working families' which has nothing to do with the environment.

And second, Milli defended Labour's reluctance to limit air travel by saying that we have to look at the total carbon footprint (and more about that when I can get my words together) so flying is OK provided we don't use our cars and replace our lightbulbs with low energy ones. Justin Rowlatt had already been roundly told off on the programme because after making some quite significant energy savings in his house and lifestyle, he'd pretty much blown the lot on a flight to Jamaica.

But at least Milli seems to be singing from the same hymn sheet as his boss, even if it's the wrong hymn sheet. Blair was widely condemned for flying to Barbados with his substantial family and army of minders and lackies for his hols. But he said: "I'm not going to be in the position of saying I'm not going to take holidays abroad or use air travel, it's just not practical."

The Independent on Sunday has since reported that Tony Blair personally emits more than 700 times as much of the pollution that causes global warming [sic] as the average Briton... Chris Huhne, for the Liberal Democrats said: "Tony Blair can't be taken seriously. He lectures the world on cutting carbon emissions but is profligate in his personal behaviour."

Justin Rowlatt's report, and the debate, currently on the Newsnight website here.