Wasted targets

Further exploration of South Tyneside Council's Draft Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy reveals another example of target-itis. Here we have the policy aspiration for recycling:

"Policy 7: The Partnership will aim to achieve the following recycling / composting targets:
- 30 per cent by 2010
- 35 per cent by 2015
- 45 per cent by 2020"

Look impressive? Challenging? Compare South Tyneside's aspirations compared with what other UK councils are doing now:

Top 10 recycling councils:
North Kesteven 51.5 per cent
Rushcliffe 49.9 per cent
South Cambridgeshire 49.4 per cent
St Edmundsbury 48.6 per cent
Huntingdonshire 48.0 per cent
Melton Mowbray 47.1 per cent
Waveney 46.6 per cent
Forest Heath 46.1per cent
Teignbridge 45.4per cent
Lichfield 45.4per cent

These councils are beating South Tyneside's 2020 recycling target now.

Like the Council's pathetic 'target' to reduce it's carbon dioxide emissions by 5 per cent over 5 years, it seems the council only like targets which are easily achievable with the minimum output. It looks good on performance target press releases I suppose.

If the council wants to avoid accusations of being cynical and lazy, it (and that includes councillors too) really needs to up it's game and aim higher.

Mili's silly target trouble

When in Nairobi on the recent round of climate talks to try and start the ball rolling on the replacement for the Kyoto protocol, South Shields MP and Environment Secretary David Miliband dismissed annual targets for reducing carbon emissions as 'silly'. His conclusion is worth exploring, or exploding.

"I don't think that binding annual targets are necessary."

For a government addicted to targets, his is an odd assessment. We have targets for health, crime, education and a host of other areas. But these are seen as a necessary motivational tool in order to gain improvements. Why not annual carbon targets?

"We think binding annual targets are silly"

It's interesting who this 'we' is, but I doubt it includes just about every successful company on the planet which has an annual business plan with - guess what - targets. Even the management-speak acronyms have the elements of goal orientation - Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Time-bound, or better, Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Time-bound, Ethical, Recorded. I think I'd rather be SMARTER annually about climate change than silly over 5 years.

"because if the weather is bad in one year it doesn't make sense to change your policies."

Now that is a silly statement. If you fail to reach your target one year, it makes perfect sense to adjust your initiatives and targets to do better the next year. Flexibility is key, and having annual targets doesn't preclude flexible plans. Besides, if we don't do something about our emissions now, we are guaranteeing ourselves and our children plenty of bad weather in the future.

"You don't just have to take my word for it - the international community at Kyoto in 1997 didn't think annual targets were sensible."

This justification is predicated on the assumption that the Kyoto protocol is perfect. It isn't - it has serious flaws. The cuts of only 4.8% of greenhouse gas emissions based on 1990 by 2012 are dangerously pathetic, it ushered in the fallacy of offsetting, and excluded air travel from the CO2 emissions measuring mechanism. The Kyoto Protocol was based partly upon the climate change science available at the time. We now know a lot more, and that we have underestimated the scale and speed of climate change. Instead of centuries, we are looking at decades. We could have as little as 25 years to drop our emissions by 90 percent. In such short timescales, 5 years is too long.

The whole point of Mr Miliband's visit to Nairobi was to try and get a Kyoto replacement off the ground. I would expect him and the other delegates to learn from Kyoto's flaws - and a lack of challenging targets was definitely one of them.

If we don't have annual targets, government will have no real impetus to take the drastic action needed on climate change. We haven't had challenging climate targets, and what have we seen? An increase in the UK's greenhouse gas emissions since the Kyoto agreement. Not having annual targets means the government can leave the worry about emissions reductions to the next year, or the next government, or even the next decade. But by then it will be too late.

Targets work. They mean business. They provide motivation to get things done. In dismissing targets Mr Miliband is arguing for complacency and low expectations.

Winners have targets. Leave the silly loser talk to others Mr Miliband, and try being a true champion of emissions reduction - with annual targets.

We need goals, not gas

Conservative Party leader David Cameron's recent announcement of his support for the Climate Change Bill, shows that Labour has a long way to go both nationally and locally to catch up in the 'carbon credibility' stakes.

The Climate Change Bill, which would oblige the government to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by at least 3 per cent each year, would form the basis of a framework of policies to reduce greenhouse emissions. Whilst Mr Cameron and Friends of the Earth have called for the Bill's entry into the forthcoming Queen's Speech, the government (and our South Shields MP David Miliband) has so far failed to comment on it, despite the Bill enjoying the support of 380 MPs across the house.

Equally alarming is that South Tyneside Council's Labour cabinet has chosen to adopt a policy which aims for a reduction in its carbon emissions of only 5 per cent over 5 years. The target, set out in the Council's Carbon Management Strategy and Action Plan, is well below what other councils have already achieved.

I suppose a nice low target is easy to achieve, and once met can show the voters just how 'great' the Council is at dealing with climate change.

In typical spin-tastic style, the South Tyneside council leader Councillor Paul Waggott, whose cabinet rubber stamped the pathetic Carbon Management Strategy and Action Plan, has tried to claw back some credibility with a feeble claim that the council already uses a (single) "council vehicle powered by electricity." This is hardly ground breaking technology, which can be attested by the many milkmen in the area who have used electric floats for years.

Of course, South Tyneside Council has made significant inroads into reducing it's greenhouse emissions, with the Middlefields wind turbine and the Temple Park centre energy savings, but to achieve real reductions there needs to be a realistic and challenging target to aim for. The planet doesn't have time for political apathy.

We need big cuts in carbon dioxide. Correspondingly, we need big targets.