On board the Thalys to Cologne

This is the third time in my life that I’ve been on the Brussels-Cologne train. Previous journey’s on this route have allowed time to be spent drinking a morning beer in Brussels town square or visiting the museum of chocolate in Cologne. Today is different. Today has been work.

The morning started in Westminster at the launch of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change advice to the government on how to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. The Committee has advised the government that UK emissions need to be reduced by more than 40 per cent by 2020 (on 1990 levels), and that all coal power stations will need to close in the early 2020s unless they capture and store the CO2 they produce.

Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, was there too saying that he “shares the vision” of the committee of a “radical decarbonisation of the UK economy”.

Then I dashed across London, onto the Eurostar, flicked through the committee’s report and am now writing this on route to Germany. More work done than if I’d been in the office having to answer colleagues questions about how Leeds lost to Histon in the FA Cup.

I doubt Ed Miliband’s rhetoric about radical decarbonisation will have much impact in Poznan. Developing countries have heard such promises before and seen little action.

If all UK coal power stations will need to shut down in the early 2020s unless they capture and store their CO2 , there is no point allowing new coal power stations without CCS to be built now. An announcement from Ed Miliband in the next week ruling out new coal power stations – that would be something which would resonate all the way to Poznan.