Surveys, as we have written previously, are often not as meaningful as at first they appear to be. Occasionally, the opposite is true. A survey undertaken by the Low Carbon Innovation Network, carried out for The Observer, and published last week in the newspaper, found that three out of four councils in the UK have no plan in place to reduce and monitor carbon emissions.

Alarmingly, if there is to be any chance of meeting the ambitious carbon emission cut targets recently announced – 60% by 2050, half of those surveyed (200 out of the country’s 468 councils) had not reached the stage of ‘identifying and appraising carbon reduction projects’. Five per cent of the councils surveyed declared they had not initiated an emissions reduction scheme.

On the positive side, one in 10 councils said they were investigating the idea of road pricing (to lessen traffic), while 75 per cent would like powers to use council tax reductions to encourage homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient. Bingo! As you may have read in the previous opinion, whatgreenhome.com puts forward the very same suggestion, among others, to incentivise each and every one of us to reduce our carbon footprint.

So, as not to repeat the previous opinion’s argument, the upshot is the councils want the power to use council tax reductions to encourage homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient, but are being denied it. Why might this be so? Clearly it is about a) money and b) the relinquishing of central power to local councils to decide how to manage their own budgets. In other words it is back to point a) money.

In the previous opinion we outlined several other incentives that could be implemented – if the political will is in place. To recap our three calls to action are: removing VAT on energy-efficient home improvements; reducing council tax for properties with a high energy-efficiency rating; and feed-in tariffs for microgeneraton schemes, such as, electricity generated from photovoltaic cells on the roofs of people’s homes sold back to the power companies.

Unashamedly, we ask the same question here as we did in the previous opinion: what’s your opinion on the broader subject of energy conservation and thus CO2 emission reductions? We’d very much like to know, which is why we have introduced our own survey - HAVE YOUR SAY - to the site . It is a simple YES or NO click process to the following question: Is the British government doing enough to encourage energy saving measures in our homes?

Once compiled, if the majority believe no it isn’t doing enough, we’ll go about lobbying the government to implement measures that incentivise us all to reduce our carbon footprint in significant ways. If, on the other hand, more of you that New Labour is doing a good job of encouraging energy saving initiatives, I’ll eat my hat (was that thought supposed to stay in my head?!). No, we’ll be sure to write to Gordon Brown and pass on your congratulations. Let democracy be the winner!