Chris Till

  • Is Buying an Electric Car a No-brainer yet?

    The answer to this depends on various aspects. If you have the money for a Tesla it is an obvious choice regardless of whether or not you care about doing something to help the environment.

    If you don’t have the money for a Tesla but can stretch to afford a Nissan Leaf or similar priced car, and you do enough miles to make up for the monthly battery rental, then it is probably a no-brainer for you as well. Regardless of how much eco-guilt you feel when driving a petrol or diesel car around. As long as you don’t need to do very frequent long trips.

    If you can stretch to afford a Nissan Leaf / Renault Zoe type car and you do low mileage that would amount to significantly more in battery rental per month than your current petrol expenditure, then you, like me are an eco-nut. But in your mind it will probably be a no brainer as well.

    If you can’t afford a Tesla, need to do frequent long journeys and have no patience to wait around while rapid charging, I would suggest a BMW i3 REX if you can afford it. If not, maybe some other high EV range plug-in-hybrid like a Chevy Volt, if we get that in the UK.

    If you can’t stretch to a Renault Zoe with battery rental and you don’t care about the environment, then it’ll be a bit of a wait. Maybe by 2022 you’ll be able to buy an EV and run it with no battery rental at a cost lower than any petrol or diesel car. It may happen before then, it may take a little longer, but I would say around 5-6 years is a pretty good bet.

  • National Climate Pledges

    These so called pledges clearly mean absolutely nothing since we know we need to cut carbon emissions by probably 50% by 2030, rather than the 25-30% everyone seems to be partial to. The entire point of the climate summit is to keep below 2 degrees c. So if they aren’t willing to increase their pledges dramatically, we might as well save the co2 and not hold the conference at all.

  • Where Does Climate Policy Go Following The Election?

    The conservatives have won, but what are they going to do to tackle the climate crisis? Personally, I don’t believe they are the party of choice as far as climate change is concerned. When I checked their website in the run up to the election, I couldn’t find a single policy about the subject. The only thing that had any relevance to it was about protecting the green belt. A great thing, but nothing other parties weren’t offering, and a far cry from Lib Dem, Green or Labour policies.

    My feeling is that the situation will continue to be left in the hands of the people. If you want to get solar panels, go for it. But you won’t be compensated for it. If you want an electric car, great. Just don’t expect the government to extend the £5k subsidy. This is especially the case now that the Liberal Democrats, the driving force for environmental policies in the coalition, are no longer in power.

    I think eventually things will change through necessity. But we will have to reach a point where panic sets in for that to happen. Perhaps the Paris summit will be that point, but probably not.

  • Can The Guardian’s Keep it in the Ground Campaign Work?

    I really respect The Guardian and Alan Rusbridger for what they’re trying to do with this project and accompanying “The Biggest Story in the World” podcast, but how much difference can they make? And how likely is it that we’ll be able to make the necessary global switch to clean energy before we use up the ‘carbon budget’ of 565 gigatons, which will last about 13-15 years.

    Personally I find it hard to believe that we can work together for that type of incredibly fast change. I think if we all did put our own individual interests aside and truly worked together, we could get close. But to do that, we need to act immediately. The Paris summit is absolutely critical. We need to get a fixed amount of the remaining oil, coal and gas reserves that can be dug up in law.

    As far as The Guardian’s other tactic of trying to encourage major companies and charitable trusts to divest from fossil fuel companies. I like the idea of a type of quiet boycott. The issue is that not many companies seem to agree so far, and even the ones who do in principle, believe that as soon as they share their stakes in these companies, someone else will immediately come in and buy the shares.

    A tactic like this, as with all climate change action, requires collaboration between almost everyone to have any real impact. I don’t think that will happen in the short term. Perhaps if a landmark deal is reached in Paris that causes the world to take notice and generates massive momentum, then we might see this tactic start to work. Until then, I don’t see it.

    There are other tactics that the campaign can look at using, including making noise in the run up to the general election and talking to car companies about investing more in electric cars and battery tech among other things. They need to explore every possible avenue.

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