At the Labour Party conference, Hilary Benn has announced an illustrative and purely voluntary timetable for major retailers and energy companies to phase out energy- guzzling incandescent light bulbs.
This will start with 150W incandescent light bulbs being phased out by Jan 2008, 100W light bulbs being phased out by Jan 2009, and 60W light bulbs being phased out by 2010 and end with the EU tabling more binding legislation during 2009.
Having set up the Ban The Bulb campaign in 2005, I am delighted that so many powerful organisations have accepted the logic of phasing out the most profligate energy using products in ways that save money, energy and carbon and have agreed to work together.
However, I am concerned that governments all over the world are proving so reluctant to legislate for binding bans and timetables for action which would guarantee reductions in carbon emissions rather than leave them vulnerable to the whims of retailers.
It is also worrying that the big light bulb manufacturers are lobbying to be allowed to sell the next generation of high efficiency incandescent light bulbs.
These new designs of light bulb use 30% less electricity that today's incandescent light bulbs but come nowhere near matching 75% energy saving already possible with today's compact fluorescent lamps and still need to be replaced several times during the lifetime of an equivalent compact fluorescent lamp.
Tesco already sells a compact fluorescent lamp for 81p which lasts 6 years and saves approximately £9 of electricity each year or £45 over it's lifetime. This means that an average house containing 23.5 light bulbs could save up to £1,057 of running costs on electricity bills at an upfront cost of £19.
While it's good that Tesco is making a cheap energy efficient bulb widely available, the best compact fluorescent lamps each cost approximately £5, but they last up to 15 years and save £9 per year or £135 over their lifetime. This means that an average house containing 23.5 of these longer life light bulbs could theoretically therefore save up £3,172 at a cost of £117.50. However these more expensive energy efficient options are not yet widely avaiable in the UK.
The UK government has estimated that the measures it has announced will save approximate one million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year between now and 2012. However, if it implemented an outright ban now it would save two to three million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year in the UK and bring forward the timescales in which compact fluorescent lamps were produced in sufficient quantities to meet demand. So, the government measures are three times less effective than an outright ban.
A well thought out ban would also send a clear signal to the manufacturers that it was worth investing in new technologies such as LEDs or ceramic lamps which matched or exceeded the energy performance of compact fluorescent lamps.
Overall, I welcome the government's efforts to put down markers for manufacturers and retailers to aim for. However, I regret its lack of nerve when it comes to driving through necessary and widely accepted change. The EU is drafting the legislation which will frame any EU-wide ban and I can only hope that the UK government will be bold enough to query the timescales the manufacturers say they need to build new factories and the half measures that other vested interests will attempt to insert in the vague commitments that have so far been made.
If we cannot successfully implement a meaningful ban of incandescents light bulbs, where the win-win arguments are so overwhelmingly strong, how are we ever going to get stuck into banning other profligate technologies such as patio heaters, plasma screens that won't turn off and sports cars that go three times the legal speed limit?
