Email 3283, Feb 2001: UEA's Trevor Davies likes an insane plan to spend some of the anticipated UK 50 million pounds per year in carbon tax loot: pick 20 UEA staff households and reduce their CO2 emissions by 60% "because this is the value which will start to make a difference in climate terms"

Email 3283

[Trevor Davies]...the real value of this project would be to actually DO it. The Carbon tax will raise 250-300M a year, but much is likely to go back to industry via reductions in NI. The CT still anticipates a fund of 50M a year, however. They are still groping for the way forward, so are v. open to suggestion. The body language was open when we raised the suggestion last week. We need to follow it up with a few pages, & a great enthusiasm from the university, & promote it as a universal prototype.

...That is, take UEA as an experimental community. But not totally disconnected from the real world. So also consider transport (local authorities will need to be involved). And take (say) 20 "representative" staff households, as deep connections into the rest of the world. Then do a total carbon audit. Then, over a period of 10 or so years, reduce global-UEA emissions by x%. Our starting point is that x should be 60. Sixty per-cent because this is the value which will start to make a difference in climate terms.