I interrupt the current frenzy around the blogs about the Lib Dem leadership to bring you news from China – promising news from President Hu Jintao’s opening speech to the Communist Party’s congress.

He talked about the need for China to “promote a conservation culture” and “energy and resource-efficient and environment-friendly industries”. Of course words in speeches come more easily than action – but it’s good to see him setting out the need for China to become more green – and that should mean good news for our one, shared global climate.

Is changing your light bulb going to do any good in the face of global warming? How can you and your light bulb possibly counteract all the increasing carbon emissions from China?

Those are the questions addressed in my piece for the New Statesman’s blog – do go and have a read and find out the seven reasons why I think your light bulb does matter!

Local community groups came together to discuss and work out a way forward for a sustainable agenda for Haringey. Well, given that the Labour Council and the Labour government between them have not done the necessary – this is probably a move in the right campaigning direction.

The problem is that whilst the presentations were very good – from Friends of the Earth, Haringey Residents Associations and an energy consultant – it is in the end to a great extent about political will. We really do have to work towards a sustainable future and (excuse the number of clichés) there really is no time to lose. But whilst there is a lot of emphasis put – rightly – on individual action, there is much more that need to be done by the different parts of the state, especially giving us not merely an aspirational target for reducing carbon emissions by 2050 in the forthcoming Climate Change Bill but annual targets instead.

And a bit more is required of businesses – such as why not get the FTS100 companies to publish their carbon footprint? And why does Labour Haringey show no interest or desire to take up the local Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment to get businesses to recycle? Lots of individuals recycling their glass bottles is one thing, but imagine the impact of providing more pubs with a glass recycling service – or shops a cardboard box recycling service – and the list of examples goes on.

And one of the biggest carbon emitters of all – our homes – could be so much more energy efficient: not just lagging and cavity walls, but real improvements like in some northern European countries where emissions from peoples’ houses is almost down to nothing. It can be done – and the costs can be covered by savings on fuel bills.

Nevertheless – congratulations to the organisers of the sustainable communities conference, as we sure do need pressure – continual pressure – on both Haringey Council and the Government, particularly as the Climate Change Bill proceeds.

Yesterday’s Channel 4 programme – Great Global Warming Swindle – supposedly debunking global warming has got it all wrong. Now – I’m all for scepticism and testing out arguments properly. So just because nearly every reputable scientist in the field believes global warming is real and a major problem isn’t a reason to close our minds on the subject. But if you are going to question it, you really need to do better than recycle old arguments that have long since been debunked.

What did the show have then? New evidence? No. New arguments? No. Rather just the same old sensation-seeking half-stories that have been rolled out and debunked many times before. There’s a good summary of the details of all this at In The Green.

So sorry Channel 4 – you get an F for fail for that programme.

It’s the big Lib Dem Green Tax Switch campaign week at the moment, so today we held our own street stall. This is a national campaign to get people to sign up to our Green Tax Switch (www.greentaxswitch.com). And Lib Dems up and down the country are having street stalls to back the campaign. I was on our stall on Crouch End Broadway, and after a bit of early rain – the sun came out.

The big idea is to begin the move away from taxing work towards taxing the polluter – and whilst the overall tax take remains neutral – as well as helping to stop Climate Change (one of the two biggest threats we face) it also allows us to lift the bottom 10% of people out of tax altogether and cut the basic rate of tax by two pence in the pounds for everyone. (That’s not two pence off the your tax bill, but rather more!). It is a real shift in taxation policy – and already we are seeing the other parties having to come onto our territory. I am just glad that the environment is now centre stage and that we are able to force the issue politically.

It’s so great when you are doing a street stall and you see someone rushing by with both hands full of shopping as one lady did and then – as you mention ‘climate change’ – they stop! It’s the last thing they want to do with hands full and rushing about – but their conscience will not let them pass. Thank goodness so many people really care about the future and took time to fill in the Green Tax Switch sign up cards.