Today DEFRA released per capita CO2 emissions figures for the Local Authority areas in 2006.
The following Hampshire figures are for average CO2 produced per person (per capita) in 2006:
Portsmouth - 5.7 tonnes
Havant - 5.3
Gosport - 4.7
Winchester - 8.5
Test Valley - 8.0
Fareham - 5.6
New Forest - 7.6
The figures show that we have a long way to go in order to cut emissions. Many people in developing nations have carbon footprints well under 1 tonne!
However Westminster has one of the worst in the country at 15.3 tonnes per person.
What level of reductions are required?
Current targets are set for about a 60% reduction in green house gas emissions, this would mean the average in Portsmouth would have to come down to about 2.3 tonnes per person. But some are advocating 80% cuts, this would require a reduction to about 1.2 tonnes per person.
The good news is that most of the 2006 Hampshire figures are down from 2005, Portsmouth was lower by about 6.3%.
BioSolar have developed a sustainable material for use with Photo Voltaic solar panels that is upto 50% cheaper than fossil fuel based plastics. The main ingredients are recycled cotton cellulose and castor beans, called BioBacksheet, it will be used as a low cost backing material for PV panels.
Jonathon Porritt has warned that UK energy companies could face similar bad reputations as tobacco companies if they built new coal power stations, with the potential of paying for the damage they do at a later date.
He was speaking at the Liberal Democratic conference in Bournemouth.
The second episode of the BBC2 series 'Earth: The Climate Wars', presented by Dr Iain Stewart, proved to be just as absorbing as the first episode and continued to deal an even hand on the subject. Unfortunately, despite the equality, the sceptics still came off worse as each historical attack on climate change science was dealt with and brushed aside.
The programme showed the first sceptic attack was based on the early assumption that the earth was not warming at all. This proved to be incorrect after some adjustments to some satelite temperature readings.
The second sceptic attack was aimed at Michael Manns hockey stick graph, this time it was pointed out that other data showed a similar recent large increase in temperature and that such an increase had never occured previously over the last 1000 years.
The third sceptic attack covered by the programme was based on the assumption that the sun and cosmic rays were causing the warming (having excepted the earth was warming!), evidence showed this was not so.
Over a short space of time, sceptics have changed from denying that the earth was warming, to accepting that humans are responsible for some of it. Over time the shot gun approach to the attacks proved to be a failure, but also slowed down changes we needed to make to prevent further warming.
According to a new Guardian report, a flagship European scheme designed to fight global warming is set to hand hundreds of millions of pounds to some of Britain's most polluting companies, with little or no benefit to the environment.
Sarah Palin has changed her position on climate change:
After years of questioning the scientific consensus, she switched her position yesterday on the origins of climate change, agreeing that human activity contributes to rising global temperatures.
"I believe that man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change,"
