Ireland agrees to ban the bulb by 2009

Posted by jossc — 6 December 2007 at 4:39pm - Comments

Ban the Bulb! Greenpeace capaigning on the streets of Dublin.

Good news on the energy conservation front - Ireland will be the first EU country to ban energy-wasting incandescent lightbulbs.

The Irish government announced today that, as part of its national Carbon budget, the old-style power hungry bulbs will be banned from 2009. Greenpeace congratulates the Ireland on its decision to lead the world in this simple but essential step in tackling climate change.

Which begs the question - if they can do it why can't everyone else? Other European nations have discussed similar proposals over the past year, but have yet to act. French President Sarkozy has declared his support for a 2010 national ban but has yet to publish concrete proposals, while here in the UK in a typical government cop-out the question has been left to retailers' discretion.

Unsurprisingly bulb manufacturers such as Philps, GE and Osram are lobbying hard to be allowed to produce incandescent bulbs until 2019. Yet every year of delay in 'banning the bulb' will see Europe unnecessarily pumping 20 million tonnes of climate-changing carbon dioxide into the air - something we just can't afford to be doing if we are serious about tackling climate change.

About Joss

Bass player and backing vox in the four piece beat combo that is the UK Greenpeace Web Experience. In my 6 years here I've worked on almost every campaign and been fascinated by them all to varying degrees. Just now I'm working on Peace and Oceans - which means getting rid of our Trident nuclear weapons system and creating large marine reserves so that marine life can get some protection from overfishing.

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