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Wrap up warm and save energy
• ISLINGTON Council has a part to play in tackling climate change. While all parties no doubt publicly support this view, they diverge in how radically they are prepared to act.
In the council budget presented last week, Islington’s Lib Dem administration offered a £3 million fund to subside private wind turbines or solar panels on homes. These proposals are nowhere near radical enough to make a real difference.
Wind turbines make a good front page. David Cameron showed us this. Indeed, the council’s own report acknowledges its fund will favour projects that are “highly visible”.
But we could make a real difference by first improving a key feature of our homes that is far less glamorous.
We need to step in and ensure all our homes have full loft and cavity-wall insulation. Homes use almost 40 per cent of our energy consumption. Wind turbines may help, but insulation really works.
Though less glamorous than wind turbines, fully insulated homes cut fuel bills for the average household by £300 a year.
In his report for the Treasury last October, Nicholas Stern described climate change as the “greatest market failure ever”.
We should be pursuing an active campaign to help people insulate their homes.
CLLR JAMES MURRAY
(Labour, Barnsbury)
• NOT a week goes by without photographs of politicians trekking around the Arctic to try and convince us they care about the environment. So what a refreshing change to read about the council’s new climate change fund. At £3 million it’s not a pose but real action on a real problem.
I’m particularly pleased to see that the plans include funding for projects to help cut fuel poverty by making homes more energy efficient.
Getting away from depending on oil has got to be the future. If all of us use less energy it will make all the difference.
While politicians of all parties are only too happy to generate loads of hot air on the subject of climate change, I’m proud that our Lib Dem council is letting action speak louder than words and making a real difference. Let’s hope this fund has the same success as the council’s policy of increasing recycling.
ALEX OLLIER
Evershot Road, N4
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