PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

The Oxford English Dictionary describes hypocrisy as “behaviour that does not meet the moral standards or match the opinions that somebody claims to have”.  Earlier this week, an excellent article by the Western Mail’s travel correspondent Rhodri Clark suggested that the Welsh Government’s recent behaviour in relation to its transport policy did not meet the moral standards or match its opinions on carbon emissions. Last June, the new Welsh Government announced that it would be freezing new road building projects as part of its plans to deal with the carbon emissions with an expert panel being appointed to review all road projects in Wales.  As a result, several road projects that had already been approved were cancelled, most notably the Llanbedr bypass in Snowdonia which was needed because of the serious congestion caused by tourists in the summer.  Yet, whilst smaller schemes have been scrapped because the Welsh Government wants to tackle climate change, it is continui...

Looking back over the period since the pandemic began, possibly one of the most iconic memories for me was clear blue skies with no aircraft trails to be seen anywhere.  In fact, it got to the stage, with aeroplanes grounded across the World, that seeing a long white line moving across the sky – usually a cargo plane – became a rare phenomenon rather than an everyday occurrence. The fact that people were not travelling abroad and staying at home within their own countries meant that the environment improved across the World. There were news reports about smog disappearing in some the World’s most polluted cities and fish returning to rivers and waterways such as the canals of Venice. Given this, there was hope that the world may have turned an unexpected corner on climate change with one academic journal suggesting that global carbon dioxide emissions had fallen by 17% in April 2020 as compared to the previous year. Unfortunately, as economic activity has started again, that drop h...

Recently, the European Commission published the results of a detailed survey that examined the view of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) towards key environmental issues. Whilst there have been indications that some politicians are losing interest in green issues, the same cannot be said about the SME sector. In fact, the good news from the survey is that, across Europe, SMEs added more green jobs, improved their resource efficiency and are making a greater contribution to a low carbon economy. For example, 42 per cent of European SMEs now have at least one green job i.e. have an employee who produces goods or services that benefit or optimise the use of natural resources or whose job uses processes which are more environmentally friendly or use fewer natural resources. This equates to more than 20 million green jobs across Europe, with more than half of these, not surprisingly, based in SMEs offering environmentally friendly products and services. In addition, three mi...

Last week, a fascinating report landed in my email inbox. Published by the Carbon Trust and Shell UK, “ Low Carbon Entrepreneurs: the new engines for growth ” looks at the critical role that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) can play in the low carbon sector. This includes both nuclear and renewable power, transport and activities within various manufacturing and services industries that essentially contribute, either directly or indirectly, towards reducing environmental impacts or adapting to environmental changes. Whilst some may believe that it is still a relatively small industry, it was one of the few sectors to grow during the recent recession and it is estimated that such green business accounted for over a third of the economic growth in 2011/12. Indeed, the low carbon economy is estimated to be worth over £120 billion to the UK and currently employs 940,000 people. And the good news is that the market is set to grow, driven by small dynamic companies that are...

The Republic of Ireland was one of the economies hardest hit by the recent global recession. With unemployment reaching 15 per cent earlier this year and the Irish Government having to make austerity cuts that make those emanating from Whitehall look positively generous in comparison, there remained serious doubts as to whether the Celtic Tiger could recover any of its bite during the next decade. Yet despite these challenges, the new Irish Government has begun a serious fightback and is continuing to look to innovation as the key driver in growing its economy for the future. In particular, it is developing key strategies that are focusing on those areas of the economy it sees as being critical in transforming the business sector over the next decade. One of these is the so-called Green Economy that encompasses a range of activities spread across different sectors that have the common objective of providing goods and services in a sustainable way that reduces the impact on t...