West Lancashire families have a long way to go to become ‘carbon-neutral’

Sep 18 2007 by Deborah James, Liverpool Daily Post

FAMILIES in West Lancashire have one of the toughest challenges ahead to achieve the Lib-Dems’ dream of a “carbon-neutral” society.

The borough has much higher carbon emissions per person than the average across the UK, official figures show.

The average West Lancashire resident pumps out 3.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year - compared to the national average of just 2.6 tonnes.

No Mersey local authority has a figure above three tonnes, including Liverpool (2.5), Knowsley (2.5) and Wirral (2.7). The figures, calculated for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), were highlighted as Lib-Dem delegates backed ambitious plans to make the UK carbon neutral by 2050.

The package – which the party insists is the only serious attempt to tackle global warming – would ban all petrol cars by 2040.

As well as hiking tax on gas-guzzling cars and charging lorries to use roads to double rail investment, it would also introduce ‘green’ mortgages, to improve home energy efficiency. That would seem to be a priority in West Lancashire, where higher domestic carbon emissions must, at least in part, be the result of poorer home insulation. The data was calculated from local electricity and gas meter readings and sales data.