? Environmentalist spin on world leaders? Perthshire meeting fails to impress Scottish campaigners

By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor, Sunday Herald

http://www.sundayherald.com/44750

THE G8 summit of world leaders at Gleneagles next year is to be given a carefully crafted green image, according to an internal government memo leaked to the Sunday Herald.

Prime Minister Tony Blair?s officials are proposing that, when the leaders of the eight most powerful nations come to rural Perthshire, they should tread a ?zero-carbon red carpet?. And the hundreds of journalists who will cover the event should dine at a ?zero-carbon caf??, they say.

The aim, the memo reveals, is to ?secure significant positive publicity around the world if we get it right?. But the plans have already been ridiculed by development and environmental campaigners as inadequate and image-obsessed.

?The G8 is an annual gathering of the greatest despoilers of the planet and exploiters of the developing world, and no amount of window-dressing will change that,? declared Kirstie Shirra of the World Development Movement.

The G8 summit is due to take place amid the luxury of the Gleneagles Hotel between July 6 and July 8 next year. It will involve political leaders from the UK, the US, Canada, Russia, Japan, Germany, France and Italy.

Like previous G8 summits, the high-powered gathering is bound to attract protests from anti- globalisation campaigners here and abroad. The concern of the UK government, however, is to ensure that the event looks environmentally friendly.

That is what emerges from the memo circulated by a senior civil servant to the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Number 10 Downing Street. It is entitled ?Making the G8 Summit Sustainable?.

It discloses that the UK environment secretary, Margaret Beck ett, has asked officials to ensure that the summit is sustainable. It suggests sustainability guidelines should be drawn up for other G8 meetings ?to avoid allegations of uneven-handedness or hypocrisy?.

Gleneagles is ?an opportunity for us to be as creative and as ambitious as time and money allow?, the memo argues. With this in mind, officials from Downing Street and elsewhere have put forward a series of ideas for giving the summit a green gloss.

?How can we ensure that the venue where the journalists are staying and meet for briefings is as prominently sustainable as possible, as we need to capture their attention and imagination?? the memo asks.

?Can we put solar cells on the roof, have a zero-carbon caf? ... use hydrogen buses to ferry them around? Can we reduce the waste at the event, eg ban plastic bottles? Can we have recycling bins prominently displayed??

The memo proposes a ?zero-carbon red carpet for the leaders to walk on?, though it doesn?t explain what that means. It suggests transporting leaders to and from the airport using low-polluting hybrid vehicles.

The memo asks whether the UK can ?pinch any ideas? on environmentally friendly furniture from the website of the Australian Conservation Foundation. It also highlights a website advertising low-energy lightbulbs.

To some outsiders this all looks like an attempt to play with perceptions rather than to influence policy. The summit should be prepared to make radical changes rather than tinker with appearances, they say.

?This desire to ?look good? reveals the government?s real concern for the environment to be based entirely on legitimising the G8 as an institution and not on making meaningful changes,? said Shirra, who is head of campaigns for the World Development Movement in Scotland.

?These kind of measures should be so ingrained within the assumptions of government that providing recycling bins should not be something you only do on special occasions.?

Friends of the Earth Scotland was equally scathing. ?I guess we have to be grateful that they weren?t simply proposing replacing the red carpet with a green one,? remarked the environmental group?s chief executive, Duncan McLaren.

?Greening the image of the G8 meeting won?t halt climate change or make the US realise that it has to cut its pollution. Zero-carbon carpets and caf?s are no more than a sideshow. This is typical ?spin-deep? New Labour policy.?

The leaked memo makes plain that work is already under way to explore how the pollution caused by the summit could be offset by planting trees or in other ways. Forests can absorb and store carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases that is changing the global climate.

But, as the Sunday Herald has previously reported, this is regarded by some environmental groups as a ?phoney fix? because the pollution is only temporarily removed from the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is released again when trees die.

An appendix to the memo outlines a proposed report on how to offset emissions. ?Will we just offset UK emissions? Will we seek to get other G8 countries to offset their own emissions?? it asks.

It acknowledges that there may be problems concerning how to calculate the emissions that should be offset. One section, entitled ?presentational issues?, considers the potential public-relations pitfalls.

?Do we need an outside consultancy to calculate the figures to give them credibility?? it says. ?How do we present our off-setting so it enhances our standing??

12 September 2004