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Greens decry Gordon Brown

13th Sep 2005

Request for more oil "dangerously short sighted"

The Green Party today made an appeal to the government to show real leadership and foresight in developing more sustainable transport systems for the twenty-first century.

Green Party Principal Speaker Keith Taylor said: "The reality is that oil is a finite resource. As it depletes, and demand grows, it will increase in price, and that is what we are witnessing, prompted by Hurricane Katrina's effects on US supplies.

"Gordon Brown has said that global issues need global solutions - but these solutions must also be sustainable. With the growing industrialisation of China and India, the situation is only going to get worse. To ask that Opec increase oil production by 500,000 extra barrels a day, as he has done, is dangerously short sighted."(1)

"A responsible government would be planning now for when oil is even more expensive and in short supply. Industry analysts predict crude oil will double from its present price within the next few years. We're seeing the upset petrol pump price rises of a few pence per litre can cause, there is a real potential for huge civil disruption when peak oil predictions come true.

"Cutting the petrol tax is not the answer to the problem. We need to dramatically reduce the oil dependency of our economy - which makes us vulnerable to periodic shocks and disruption such as this, rather than continue to massively subsidise motorists. Official statistics show that between 1987 and 2000, although petrol and oil prices had increased by 45%, and tax and insurance payments by over 40%, the total costs of motoring in real terms had risen by only 5.6-7.2%. 2 The same figures also reveal that bus and coach fares increased by 18%, and rail fares by 21%, in real terms. The Green Party believes this is patently unsustainable and irresponsible.

"In the longer term, for the government not to take immediate decisive and positive action now is a betrayal of this and future generations. We cannot afford to wait until petrol stations run out of fuel to act, or the floods caused by global warming are at our door - because that will be too late.

"We must develop alternative and sustainable transport solutions now. This means improving public transport, taking back into public control the rail network, and encouraging the development of low-carbon emitting transport systems. This is the fourth fuel crisis in as many decades - how many do we need to suffer for the government to wake up?"

ENDS

Notes for Editors: