Britain's green shame

Jonathon Porritt steps down from Blair's sustainability commission with UK still second-worst greenhouse gas emitter in Europe
When it comes to environmental sustainability, the prognosis is grim: Britain is "winning battles, but still losing the war".

The UK is failing to hit a raft of key targets on sustainable living, according to a new report to be published this week. In its critical analysis, released on Wednesday, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) warns that progress on a number of green targets has been "undermined by stasis or even reversion". Jonathon Porritt, outgoing SDC chair and one-time "green guru" to Tony Blair, claims sustainability plays second fiddle to the drive for consumption-driven economic growth. "The thing that stands out is the very limited progress we've made on reducing inequity in our society... it's a startling indictment of this Government that more people will be living in fuel poverty at the time of next election than were living in fuel poverty in 1997," he said.
Britain remains well behind most European countries on supplying renewable energy, which accounts for less than 2 per cent of overall energy consumption, according to the report, which also predicts the proportion of energy produced by renewables in 2020 will be just 5 per cent – far short of the EU target of 20 per cent. And while recycling is on the increase, there is a long way to go to meet the 40 per cent target by 2010, with the UK heavily reliant on landfill, says the report.
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