Nearly three in four drivers do not know how much carbon dioxide their car emits, it was revealed today.

Yet when buying a new vehicle, 89% of consumers want environmental features brought to their attention, a survey by the Energy Saving Trust (EST) found. Nearly half (48%) are considering replacing their car in the next year, the poll of 1,511 UK drivers showed. Half said they would drive more efficiently if they had more "green" information, while 51% of those shows a list of popular cars had no idea which was the least polluting.

Fuel efficiency came third behind price and style/look as the thing that grabbed consumers' attention in car advertisements. The poll also revealed that 51% take their car on journeys of less than one mile and 71% for trips of less than 1.5 miles.


EST said that if everyone who bought a new car chose the greenest car in its class, a typical motorist could save £375 a year in fuel costs, or nearly £1 billion for all UK motorists. The survey backed up a report of the car market for the last four decades by EST which found that car buyers were making poor choices both economically and environmentally when it came to purchasing new vehicles.

The report pointed to "a market failure" in which more-desirable cars within vehicle model ranges tend to have higher CO2 emissions and where there was a "lack of awareness and advice" about emission-saving. The EST said car companies and dealers must do more to publicise the CO2 emissions of cars they sell.

EST chief executive Philip Sellwood said: "The bottom line is that, at the moment, the car market is failing: there is no good reason why at a time of rising fuel prices and higher vehicle excise duties for higher CO2 vehicles, people are continuing to buy inefficient cars. It's not good for the environment or the pockets of customers. While car manufacturers are starting to place CO2 information more prominently in their advertising, this is only helpful up to a certain point."

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Amid intensifying scrutiny of its failure to act on climate change, the US environmental protection agency (EPA) has ordered employees not to talk to internal auditors, Congress or the media, according to a leaked email released yesterday by green campaigners.

The EPA has refused repeated requests from Congress to explain its December denial of California's request to regulate greenhouse gas emissions - a move that overruled the agency's own career scientists.

Three Democratic senators have scheduled a press conference today to discuss the controversy.

On June 16, after an email from the campaign group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), the EPA told its enforcement officials not to answer questions on the issue - even those from the agency's in-house auditors.

"If you are contacted directly by the [auditors'] office or [congressional investigators] requesting information of any kind … please do not respond to questions or make any statements," the email said.

Enforcement officials were told to refer all questions to specific EPA representatives.

The issue is whether White House officials, including aides to vice-president Dick Cheney, improperly influenced the process by pressuring the EPA to reject California's bid to regulate emissions.

Peer, a non-profit group founded to fight political influence on government scientists, called the email proof of a "bunker mentality" at the agency.

"Inside the current EPA, candour has become the cardinal sin," Peer's executive director, Jeff Ruch, said.

"The clear intention behind this move is to chill the cubicles by suppressing any uncontrolled release of information."

Peer questioned whether the email could be a illegal obstruction of the EPA inspector general (IG), which conducts independent audits of the agency. IG auditors are given broad freedom under US law to examine internal policies at government agencies.

The EPA spokeswoman Roxanne Smith said the email was partly a response to a 2007 report by agency auditors on how to streamline communications. That report made no specific suggestions about how the EPA could make its process more efficient, however.

"There is nothing in the procedure that restricts conversation" between EPA staff and investigators, Smith said via email. "The procedure simply ensures timely responses and assists in tracking and record-keeping obligations."

One of the senators set to discuss the issue today, the environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer, accused the EPA chief, Stephen Johnson, of kowtowing to industry opponents of carbon regulations.

"Stephen Johnson is turning the EPA into a secretive, dangerous ally of polluters instead of a leader in the effort to protect the health and safety of the American people," Boxer, from California, said.

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From the Guardian ...

Britain is trying to water down tough new European legislation to boost the uptake of renewable energy, despite a pledge by Gordon Brown last month to launch a "green revolution" based on clean technology.

Documents obtained by the Guardian show the UK wants to block attempts to give renewable electricity sources such as wind farms priority access to the national grid. The European official who drafted the legislation accused Britain of "obstructing" EU efforts on renewables and said UK officials wanted to protect traditional energy suppliers and their coal, gas and nuclear power stations.

Claude Turmes, a Luxembourg MEP and architect of the EU renewables directive, said: "This would take us backwards and would weaken the possibilities of connecting renewable energy to the grid. A government that says it wants to promote renewables cannot go for other policies behind the scenes."

The renewables directive is intended to support an EU target to generate 20% of energy from renewable sources by 2020.

On access to the electricity grid, the draft directive said: "Member states shall also provide for priority access to the grid system of electricity produced from renewable energy sources".

However, documents seen by the Guardian show Britain wants to change "shall" to "may" - which experts say would seriously undermine the directive. Turmes said the original wording was based on a similar policy used successfully to boost renewables in Germany, Spain and Denmark, and was meant to help countries "kick dirty energy sources like coal off the grid".

A lack of connections to the national grid, which was not designed to channel power from the scattered and remote locations that suit renewables, has stalled the uptake of alternative energy in Britain and led to completed wind farms across Scotland standing idle. A recent report from the Select Committee on Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills said 9.3GW of wind power projects were currently waiting to be connected - the equivalent of a new generation of nuclear power stations.

Last month, ministers launched a renewables strategy on how to meet the UK's share of the EU 2020 target, which requires Britain to generate 15% of its energy from clean sources.

The strategy included steps on "removing grid access as a barrier to renewables deployment". Gordon Brown said it would remove "without delay the barriers that currently prevent renewable generators connecting to the national grid".

But the strategy also noted that the draft EU directive obliged member states to give priority grid access to renewables, and said the government was working to "clarify this obligation".

At a meeting of the EU energy working group this week, leaked documents show British officials tabled several amendments to the draft directive, including changing "member states shall also provide priority access to the grid ..." to "member states may also provide access ...".

Oliver Schäfer, policy director of the European Renewable Energy Council, said: "It might look like a minor thing to change the word "shall" to "may", but in terms of policy it's a major change. The word "may" means nothing when it comes to legislation."

Britain's justification for the change, included in the document, was that it was concerned about relying too heavily on intermittent renewablewable sources of electricity. It said: "The use of 'shall' could have substantial implications on network balancing and security of energy supply." It said "thermal sources" of electricity were needed as back-up, and "over time this essential back-up generation might not be available if new renewable generation projects must be given access to the grid". It said the UK wanted the "discretion to prioritise renewable generation".

Turmes said other countries including Spain, Germany and Denmark had experienced no problems giving priority to clean energy, and that large scale renewables such as offshore wind were no more intermittent than existing energy sources.

He said: "This is not a technical problem. Britain just does not want to make the choice to promote renewables, and that means it is lining up with the worst countries in Europe on this issue." He said he was concerned Britain's lead could be followed by France and that the directive would be weakened.

Turmes claimed the UK position was influenced by energy companies. "The incumbent operators want to make life difficult for newcomers."

A spokesman for the DBERR said: "Priority access for renewables is not necessary for us to meet our fair share of the EU renewables target. What renewable generators want is quicker access to the grid, not priority access. The UK is already taking significant steps to remove grid access barriers for renewables."

John Sauven, of Greenpeace, said: "We've always said there was a danger that going for nuclear power would squeeze out renewables. The government has been caught red handed undermining clean energy, and all because of Brown's ideological obsession with atomic power."

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WET! Very wet indeed ....

On Saturday 5th July 2008 we attended the Jools Holland concert at Stanford Hall, Leicestershire UK.



It was a fantastic evening even though, after 7 dry days, it rained relentlessly all night.





Some enjoyed it more than others.




Can anyone see Matt!













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Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.

"It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.

The news comes at a critical point in the world's negotiations on biofuels policy. Leaders of the G8 industrialised countries meet next week in Hokkaido, Japan, where they will discuss the food crisis and come under intense lobbying from campaigners calling for a moratorium on the use of plant-derived fuels.

It will also put pressure on the British government, which is due to release its own report on the impact of biofuels, the Gallagher Report. The Guardian has previously reported that the British study will state that plant fuels have played a "significant" part in pushing up food prices to record levels. Although it was expected last week, the report has still not been released.

"Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises," said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. "It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat."

Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as "the first real economic crisis of globalisation".

President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases."

Even successive droughts in Australia, calculates the report, have had a marginal impact. Instead, it argues that the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices.

Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to include 2.5% from biofuels. The EU has been considering raising that target to 10% by 2020, but is faced with mounting evidence that that will only push food prices higher.

"Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate," says the report. The basket of food prices examined in the study rose by 140% between 2002 and this February. The report estimates that higher energy and fertiliser prices accounted for an increase of only 15%, while biofuels have been responsible for a 75% jump over that period.

It argues that production of biofuels has distorted food markets in three main ways. First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher.

Other reviews of the food crisis looked at it over a much longer period, or have not linked these three factors, and so arrived at smaller estimates of the impact from biofuels. But the report author, Don Mitchell, is a senior economist at the Bank and has done a detailed, month-by-month analysis of the surge in food prices, which allows much closer examination of the link between biofuels and food supply.

The report points out biofuels derived from sugarcane, which Brazil specializes in, have not had such a dramatic impact.

Supporters of biofuels argue that they are a greener alternative to relying on oil and other fossil fuels, but even that claim has been disputed by some experts, who argue that it does not apply to US production of ethanol from plants.

"It is clear that some biofuels have huge impacts on food prices," said Dr David King, the government's former chief scientific adviser, last night. "All we are doing by supporting these is subsidising higher food prices, while doing nothing to tackle climate change."

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