Professor Nick Day at Longue Hougue, the site earmarked for a waste plant. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0722456)

AN ENVIRONMENTALIST told the Longue Hougue planning inquiry he was ‘totally stunned’ that greenhouse gas emissions were not within its remit.

Representing the Guernsey Climate Action Network, Professor Nick Day said emissions should be central to any investigations.

‘The world and scientific assessment of what the hazards are have changed a lot and the emission of greenhouse gases has come to the forefront,’ he said.

Environment Department principal forward planning officer Damon Hackley said climate change issues were out of the scope of the purposes of the inquiry.

Rightly or wrongly, he said, there was no strategic guidance when it came to greenhouse gas emissions so there was nothing for the planners to assess them against.

Emissions were, he said, something for the Public Services Department to consider when it was evaluating tenders.

Professor Day said G-Can believed that any heat treatment or incineration plant should be limited to a maximum annual capacity of 20,000 tonnes.