TOPIC 'Environment' on Feb 04, 2009 (CET)
The Tory Party In The UK Says Now Is Not The Time To Give Up On The Environment
David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party in the U.K., has recently introduced a plan to provide households with £6,500 of incentives to build their homes to greener standards. These standards would include homeowners making efficiency improvements to energy usage in their homes.
The £6,500 would not go to homeowners directly, but instead the energy utilities would take it upon themselves to insulate homes at no charge to the owners. The energy companies would then recoup their expenses for the insulation through energy bills. However, energy bills tend to go down when insulation is added to a home; that’s one of the results of making one’s home more efficient.
The plan is broad and covers a lot of areas. It promotes tidal and wave power usage, along with a network for charging electric cars, heating projects involved around entire communities, and a rail network of high-speed trains. The plan also involves using “smart grids” that would allow intelligent management of electricity’s supply and demand. Other components of the plan could include the use of feed-in tariffs to guarantee a premium on electricity.
This plan has the philosophy in mind to create a multitude of jobs in the green technology market by the year 2020. Cameron noted that, “despite the economic downturn, [now is] not the time to drop the environment as a concern.” Any plans and policies that are put into effect now need to look down the road toward the future, and not just be utilized for the short term good.
Many environmental groups wholeheartedly back this plan and the idea to get the economy going by investing in green technologies whereby green industries are going to need workers and employees. The plan also re-stated its intent to lower carbon emissions at power stations. The goal with this idea is to position a “carbon capture and storage technology at new coal-fired power plants.” Some opponents of this part of the plan say they are concerned with the possibility of active dirty coal-fired plants.
Sherry Irvin
on behalf of the
BascoTec Internet Limited
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