December 2015 Newsletter

A round up of news and views

Happy New Year to all our readers and supporters!

Air Quality in Marlborough - Marlborough is part of an 'Air Quality Management Area'. Area Board Councillors recently asked TM to develop an action plan in order to improve Marlborough's air quality. This action plan will become part of a county-wide strategy which must be submitted to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as a result of a Supreme Court ruling on the need to reduce air pollution nationwide. We have come up with 8 recommendations which could reduce traffic flows by at least 30% and thus improve air quality in the town. We are planning to discuss these recommendations with the Community Engagement Manager at our next Hub meeting on 14th January.  Read more...

Permaculture 2016 - The 2016 Permaculture Course will start on Saturday 19th March.  It costs just £35 (includes a free book) for a 10 week course at venues in and around Marlborough.  You will learn how to increase your self-sufficiency in both food and energy - and have lots of fun in the process. Past participants of this course still meet on a regular basis. In the picture you can see some of us at our last gathering, where we learned about rocket mass heating and how to make egg sandwiches on a mini rocket stove! If you want to register interest in the 2016 permaculture course, please get in touch via permaculture@transitionmarlborough.org

COP21: What did they agree? - As well as setting a long-term direction, countries agreed to peak their emissions as soon as possible and continue to submit national climate action plans that detail their future objectives to address climate change. Additionally, they will work to define a clear roadmap on ratcheting up climate finance to USD 100 billion by 2020.  Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said "...a low-carbon, resilient future is now the chosen course for humanity this century". Read more...

COP21: How will we measure progress? - a team of leading scientists from the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project, have already defined a pathway to a low-carbon economy for the UK, that respects the political economy and fulfills domestic development priorities.  This is a summary of their key recommendations:

• Emissions from power stations must be reduced by 85-90% by 2030. This depends on the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to mitigate GHG emissions from fossil fuels, such as coal or methane gas.  
• There needs to be pricing stability to encourage investment in the renewables sector.
• Stronger policies are needed to deliver energy efficiency retrofits of existing buildings.
• Low income groups must be protected from fuel poverty.
• Airport expansion, other transport infrastructure (including urban development) and extractive industries need to take account of GHG reduction targets.

But is our government ready to support these recommendations? It is up to 'civil society' (i.e. us) to hold their feet to the fire and make sure that the UK has a credible climate action plan by 2020. Read more...

The future of KCEL - Our own community energy company has recently suffered from the double whammy of a big reduction in the 'feed-in tariff' and the abolition of the EIS tax relief. This will make future solar projects inviable, while the cost of solar pv remains comparatively high. Nick, who chairs KCEL said, "I think we will be going through a relatively quiescent phase in the near future.  Panel prices are continuing to drop and electricity prices are bound to go up, so I see new projects eventually coming along which will be fundable by the community".

In case you were wondering what happened to all the postcards to David Cameron that we signed - they were displayed outside his house in Downing Street!

Thanks

The Transition Marlborough team