E3G

BBC Radio 4: Launch of E3G

By Chris Littlecott

JH: But they are precisely the people who have been targeted by Friends of the Earth and so on.

JA: Well, they have been targeted successfully in as much as they are now much more aware of the problems…and concerned…

JH [interjects]: Exactly. If they are not aware now one wonders whether they ever would be…

JA: …concerned as individuals about the problems. What is harder is that they don’t always know what are the choices that they can make – [JH: Really?] – the practical choices they can make in concert with others working in other institutions, that will help them be part of the solution rather than be part of the problem.

JH: Give me an example of that because everybody for instance working in the Department of Transport knows that the fewer cars that are driving around our roads and cities, the fewer environmental problems we have from them. So, I mean, isn’t that all blindingly obvious?

JA: At one level it may be. But take the problem of climate change which we were talking about earlier. Over the next twenty years there will be something like 16 trillion dollars of capital invested in energy systems. And the challenge with climate change is to make sure that that investment flows in ways that give you clean energy that doesn’t destabilise the climate rather than continuing greenhouse gases emissions. That’s not a simple problem that can be solved simply by choices of individuals acting alone, there needs to be a pattern of choice offered that joins up what people are doing in different countries and institutions…

JH: So, very, very quickly, are you a pressure group or what are you if not?

JA: We are not a pressure group, we are a means of mobilising people coherently across institutions on the inside, we complement the work of pressure groups.

JH: And you have the support of the government?

JA: We are not a governmental organisation. We have conversations with government, with business, with NGOs. We not pro-government or anti-government. We work with anybody who wants to help us deliver solutions.

JH: John Ashton, many thanks.