10:00:15:00 Oil
& Gas rigs burn off
Car
Exhausts, traffic
Professor
Oswald walking
Taxis
past
GuideVoice: Can we stop Global Warming? Many
people believe that despite the Kyoto agreement, we are not moving
fast enough to cut our dependence on fossil fuels, and that future
generations will pay for the damage we have caused.
Among them is Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics at the
University of Warwick. He has come up with his own radical
proposal, to create incentives that will make us change our
behaviour faster.
10:00:39:04 SOT: Andrew Oswald, Professor of
Economics, University of Warwick: - "I'd like to
see us tackle global warming with what I call global warming bonds,
and those would be a kind of financial incentive that would
persuade people today to change how they are acting. To drive cars
that produce less carbon emissions for example. And the idea behind
these global warming bonds is that they would be funded by unborn
generations, in a sense that would allow unborn babies to vote with
their wallets to get us to change how we act today."
10:01:05:02 Fuel
pump & Traffic sequence
Hydrogen
buses & cars
Cu
wind turbine
GVs
Wind farm
Guide Voice: The proposed Government Bonds
would start to pay out around the year 2045 and would be paid for
by our grandchildren through taxation. Professor Oswald argues that
transport, which now consumes a third of all energy used in the UK,
is a key area where they could have an impact.
Even moves to convert buses and cars to run on hydrogen cells do
not go far enough because the energy used to create hydrogen would
have to come from a renewable source too. Wind farms and solar
power are becoming increasingly important energy sources, yet they
do not produce enough energy even to meet our transport needs.
10:01:41:20 SOT: Professor Oswald:
- "If we work out how many wind turbines would be
needed in Britain just to power our cars through hydrogen the
answer comes to about one hundred thousand wind turbines in our
country alone just to fuel transport, if you think about the
spacing of those then you get an area bigger than Wales or even if
you put them offshore you would get a strip of turbines about ten
kilometres wide all around the shores of Great Britain. We need
enormous land areas devoted to renewable energy and I think its
vital that British citizens face up to this."
10:02:16:02 Congestion
charge signs
Planes
take off, in air,
Landing
Holiday
plane landing
Wind
farm shots
Guide Voice: While congestion charging in
London has proved effective in cutting traffic in the city centre,
Professor Oswald is arguing for a nationwide road charging system,
to challenge our reliance on cars. Air travel is another key
concern. Energy consumption here has tripled in the last thirty
– five years, making it the fastest growing source of all
carbon emissions in western society.
So what could compel today's population to forgo our foreign
holidays and cars, and curb our use of greenhouse gases in order to
pass on a cooler planet to our grandchildren?
Pounds make the best persuaders, argues Professor Oswald.
Compensating individuals, companies and countries who cut
emissions, with bonds that guarantee a steady stream of income in
the future, would be a viable way of reducing global warming
today.
10:03:04:23 SOT: Professor
Oswald: - "On the face of it, it does sound harsh
to require unborn people to pay for our excesses, but what's the
alternative? We need to get our citizens to change their actions
now, future generations will be much richer than us anyway, if they
were here they would be happy to pass over some of their cash to
get us to drive cleaner cars to take shorter holidays. Why not use
some of their money through a global warming bond to get our
citizens to change their actions today?"
Ends. Duration
3mins 18 seconds
