Two steps forward, one step back

So the penny has finally dropped in government - climate change and energy policy need to be linked up. Hurrah! About time. Ed Milliband is now the Climate Change and Energy Minister. Let's hope that leads to some more sensible thinking by the government. I fear not though. There still seems to be no understanding that a new generation of coal-fired power stations, airport expansions and road building will make it impossible to hit our CO2 emissions targets.

Hurrah for the Tories! Cripes - I never thought I'd hear myself say that. But I applaud David Cameron's announcement that the Tories will veto a third runway at Heathrow. Trouble is, the most powerful elected Tory in the country, Mayor of London Boris Johnson, wants to build a new airport in the Thames gateway which would completely negate any emssions cap placed on Heathrow by preventing its expansion.

Here's another strange Tory policy. It's great that they've picked up the Lib Dem plan to build new high speed railways in Britain such as France has had for decades. But as far as I can make out they are only talking about building one line from London to Leeds via Birmingham and Manchester. That's not going to replace much air traffic.

And whereas the Lib Dem plan for investing in our railways is backed by a coherent vision for a Britain powered by renewable energy, the Tories are completely silent on this. A high speed railway network powered by coal and gas would be almost as bad in terms of carbon emissions as flying.