David Miliband is making an impressive start as environment secretary. He's already looking at domestic carbon rationing: Swipe-card plan to ration consumers' carbon use
A few days ago Milliband asked officials to look more closely at providing financial incentives to encourage householders to recycle most of their waste.
It looks as if Miliband is a man with a mission. Who knows what Margaret Beckett's mission was but I have heard she was good on at the international level. I'll have to take their word for that.
But how is Miliband going to persuade Gordon Brown to put aside ten years of branwashing from the Treasury who I would guess are implacably opposed to anything like carbon rationing? They are probably having meetings right now to find ways of derailing Milliband's plans.
David Milliband's blog
Domestic Tradable Quotas: A policy instrument for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from energy use
Brainwashing?
Brainwashing? I don't remember Geoffrey Howe or Norman Lamont going on about a need for more planes and cars or pumping more oil. I'm sure 'Clarkson' Brown loves the idea of a local carbon-swiping trial as yet another headline-grabbing delaying tactic.
Beckett apparently had a hand in the Exeter conference and its report; the Energy Efficiency Action Plan; the course of Renewables Obligation; and the 8MtC cuts in industrial emissions recently announced by Alistair Darling after 'I'm Alright Jack' Alan Johnson had insisted on only 3MtC, which had led to the ambiguity in the Climate Change Review.
DEFRA achievements up to 2004