Thursday
Aug192010
Festival of Politcs: Zero Carbon Event Report
Posted on 
August 19, 2010 by Ally
August 19, 2010 by Ally 
We couldn't make it to the 'Zero Carbon Scotland' session at the Festival of Politics yesterday, so we're delighted that prolific Edinburgh blogger, train guard, and former Leith resident, Cowrin, wrote this guest post for our benefit.
Nestling in amongst it’s bigger cousins during the Edinburgh August madness is the little-known Festival of Politics. Started a few years ago, it sees the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood swing open its debating chamber and committee rooms to discussions as diverse as Europe, genetics, football and architecture.
Environmental issues are usually well-catered for, with this year being no exception. Today, I went along to a session entitled Zero Carbon Scotland Of The Future. Chaired by Rob Edwards of the Sunday Herald, three panellists were invited to give a short 10 minute talk on an issue and then we had around 25 minutes of questions from the audience at the end.
I mentioned to a friend before the session started that perhaps these events were a bit like preaching to the converted. After all, you’re not likely to just stumble into a talk about decarbonising Scotland. That remark was to come back to me later, but the beauty of the Festival of Politics is that you tend to get a wide range of views heard in both the discussions and the questions.
First up to speak was Professor Stuart Haszeldine of the University of Edinburgh, who gave us a brief run-down of Scotland’s energy mix and where carbon was being emitted. He seemed quite taken with biochar as a solution to some of our problems, but frustratingly just teased us with throwaway mentions of Renewable Energy, Nuclear and Carbon Capture & Storage. Biomass projects, like that proposed by Forth Energy for Leith, were completely absent from his talk, as were any proposals on how we can decarbonise our energy supply (other than saying there should be a “mix”).
Next to speak was Rachel Nunn of Going Carbon Neutral Stirling. She chose the subject of food, dealing during her talk with waste, farming methods, distribution and nutrition. There was an elephant in the room, though. In fact there was a herd of cattle in the room. She never mentioned meat. Reducing our consumption of meat can reduce our carbon emissions immensely, but it wasn’t given a mention and wasn’t asked about later.
Last up was John Pinkard of Transform Scotland, who campaign for what they call a “more sensible transport system”. But again, we were left frustrated by a lack of detail. He mentioned that the first thing we should do is decarbonise our public transport network. Okay, how? It was left to our imaginations to fill in the blanks about electric buses or hydrogen taxis. And incredibly, sitting less than a mile from streets which have been ripped up over the last couple of years, there was no mention of Edinburgh’s Trams.
The brochure had promised us “some of Scotland’s leading experts describe what Scotland could be like after carbon!” Unfortunately, they failed to live up to this promise, and if you were “the converted” then you had heard all they had to say before, and any new nuggets of information were left just hanging in the air.
I would have preferred Professor Haszeldine to have told us how our energy mix could feasibly look in the future (and not just how we’d like it to look), for Rachel Nunn to have told us how she was managing to turn Stirling carbon neutral and what lessons could be applied to the whole of Scotland, and for John Pinkard to outline what Scotland’s transport network is going to look like in 20 years time and how it will get there.
But I mentioned at the start that they were probably preaching to the converted. I was wrong. A couple of climate change ‘deniers’ in the audience managed to put points across at the end, to the great glee of one of them who actually punched the air in delight when the proposed Hunterston coal power station was mentioned! Still, if we’re going to reach the government’s carbon reduction targets, then we have to preach to the unconverted too.
I enjoyed the session even if it turned out to be slightly less than billed, and could quite happily have sat through another hour of discussion and debate if that had brought more detail forth from the guests. But perhaps that is another beauty of the Festival of Politics - it unashamedly makes you think, and want to go and research the topics further.
Environmental issues are usually well-catered for, with this year being no exception. Today, I went along to a session entitled Zero Carbon Scotland Of The Future. Chaired by Rob Edwards of the Sunday Herald, three panellists were invited to give a short 10 minute talk on an issue and then we had around 25 minutes of questions from the audience at the end.
I mentioned to a friend before the session started that perhaps these events were a bit like preaching to the converted. After all, you’re not likely to just stumble into a talk about decarbonising Scotland. That remark was to come back to me later, but the beauty of the Festival of Politics is that you tend to get a wide range of views heard in both the discussions and the questions.
First up to speak was Professor Stuart Haszeldine of the University of Edinburgh, who gave us a brief run-down of Scotland’s energy mix and where carbon was being emitted. He seemed quite taken with biochar as a solution to some of our problems, but frustratingly just teased us with throwaway mentions of Renewable Energy, Nuclear and Carbon Capture & Storage. Biomass projects, like that proposed by Forth Energy for Leith, were completely absent from his talk, as were any proposals on how we can decarbonise our energy supply (other than saying there should be a “mix”).
Next to speak was Rachel Nunn of Going Carbon Neutral Stirling. She chose the subject of food, dealing during her talk with waste, farming methods, distribution and nutrition. There was an elephant in the room, though. In fact there was a herd of cattle in the room. She never mentioned meat. Reducing our consumption of meat can reduce our carbon emissions immensely, but it wasn’t given a mention and wasn’t asked about later.
Last up was John Pinkard of Transform Scotland, who campaign for what they call a “more sensible transport system”. But again, we were left frustrated by a lack of detail. He mentioned that the first thing we should do is decarbonise our public transport network. Okay, how? It was left to our imaginations to fill in the blanks about electric buses or hydrogen taxis. And incredibly, sitting less than a mile from streets which have been ripped up over the last couple of years, there was no mention of Edinburgh’s Trams.
The brochure had promised us “some of Scotland’s leading experts describe what Scotland could be like after carbon!” Unfortunately, they failed to live up to this promise, and if you were “the converted” then you had heard all they had to say before, and any new nuggets of information were left just hanging in the air.
I would have preferred Professor Haszeldine to have told us how our energy mix could feasibly look in the future (and not just how we’d like it to look), for Rachel Nunn to have told us how she was managing to turn Stirling carbon neutral and what lessons could be applied to the whole of Scotland, and for John Pinkard to outline what Scotland’s transport network is going to look like in 20 years time and how it will get there.
But I mentioned at the start that they were probably preaching to the converted. I was wrong. A couple of climate change ‘deniers’ in the audience managed to put points across at the end, to the great glee of one of them who actually punched the air in delight when the proposed Hunterston coal power station was mentioned! Still, if we’re going to reach the government’s carbon reduction targets, then we have to preach to the unconverted too.
I enjoyed the session even if it turned out to be slightly less than billed, and could quite happily have sat through another hour of discussion and debate if that had brought more detail forth from the guests. But perhaps that is another beauty of the Festival of Politics - it unashamedly makes you think, and want to go and research the topics further.
Fay Young has also blogged recently about her experiences in the Festival of Politics too.
Photo credit: Scottmliddell
Read more about: Energy & Climate Change, Food, Food For Thought, Greener Travel, Guest Post Festival of Politics, Stirling, Trams, Transform Scotland, politics
Energy & Climate Change, Food, Food For Thought, Greener Travel, Guest Post Festival of Politics, Stirling, Trams, Transform Scotland, politics 
Reader Comments (2)
Presently the city of Szeged in Hungary has been converting diesel buses to trolleybuses: http://www.tbus.org.uk/news2007.htm
http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2010/10/28/bbc-radio-uses-industry-funded-expert-for-balanced-view-on-ccs/
Thanks
Keith