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How consumers, businesses and government can fight climate change
12th October 2007
Douglas Parr, David Chaytor and Rebecca Willis Podcast Transcript
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In this podcast, Neville Hobson interviews Douglas Parr, Greenpeace’s chief scientist, and David Chaytor, MP for Bury North. They discuss the roles of consumers, businesses and government in tackling climate change.
Douglas Parr is adamant that businesses can play a positive role in the environmental debate:
Businesses can lead, and show innovation to provide solutions. They can demonstrate to their staff that there are solutions and they can talk to government about the solutions that they have identified — and why everybody should be joining in and not just the leaders.
David Chaytor MP identifies the need for government intervention to prevent greenwash:
[Verification of carbon emissions] is crucial otherwise all that happens is people get more cynical. The government recently, for example, has now established a national code of conduct in respect of carbon neutrality. So there’s a big increase in companies in the UK over the last few years claiming to be carbon neutral and using carbon offsetting to become carbon neutral, so we now have a code of practice over carbon offsetting because there have been a number of clearly unacceptable practices there, companies clearly over claiming their credentials. So again, the government’s responsibility is to create the framework, establish the code of practice, and intervene more directly when necessary.
Also interviewed is Rebecca Willis, vice chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, who discusses the Grid 2.0 concept.
