On this day, October 5 in 2006 Greenpeace took the Blair Government to court over its incredibly shoddy and shonky “consultation” on energy.
See Guardian article here – “Greenpeace sues over Energy Review.”
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 379.33ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this – the 2003 Energy White Paper had put nuclear on the backfoot, instead focussing on renewables, energy efficiency and so forth. The nuclear lobby did not take this lying down, and by 2005 Blair was making pro-nuclear speeches. The Blair government then wanted to ram through pro-nuclear policies, but needed to be seen to have ‘consulted’, so did a terrible process. That is what Greenpeace sued over (successfully – see below).
Why this matters.
We should remember that ‘consultation’ is often just another of those governance devices that our Lords and Masters try to use. And fake consultation needs to be called out, resisted.
What happened next?
Greenpeace won the case on February 15 2007 –
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/feb/15/nuclear.greenpolitics1