Welcome to the second instalment of our on-line bulletin. Having cheerily volunteered to take part in this some time ago, I found myself under the spotlight at Monday morning’s regular staff meeting, which is never a good place to be. Unfortunately, it being Monday morning, the "excuses" part of my brain had yet to wake up, and so here I am. I hope that over the next few weeks my colleagues will give you a taster of the various sections of the Embassy and what we do; it’s immensely varied and everyone has vastly different experiences to share.

As for me, I work in the political section of the Embassy, mainly dealing with EU policy. The job covers a pretty wide range of issues, from headline subjects such as climate change to slightly less glamorous ones such as the plight of the European eel. It’s an overused phrase, but it really is true to say that no two days are the same. Basically, my job is to promote UK policy priorities here in Hungary; explain why we believe our ideas to be the best way forward; and to report back to London about what the Hungarians are thinking. Foremost in my mind this week is probably climate change and all its related topics.

I know it sometimes seems as if you can’t move these days without stumbling across something to do with climate change. It’s certainly one of the top – if not the top – policy priorities for the UK at the moment. I know too that there are a whole range of different opinions on it. Some say climate change has been happening for thousands of years, so why is now any different? After all, surely we wouldn’t have had an ice age without climate change? This is true of course: climate change happens; it is a force of nature and there are aspects that are out of our control. But the big difference now is the aspects that are within our control, particularly the emissions that are produced in almost every aspect of our daily life: transport, industry and our homes to name but three. These emissions are greatly speeding up the rate of climate change and if we do nothing, the results will be disastrous. We’re already seeing extreme weather conditions around the world, with the tsunami and Hurricane Katrina just two tragic examples, and these will only increase if we sit back and let climate change happen. So the time to act really is now.

With this in mind we’re working on various events here to raise awareness of climate change and its dangers, but also the economic opportunities that it could bring. We’ll be holding an event soon to discuss the technology of carbon capture and storage (CCS), which we believe to be one of the key weapons in the fight against climate change. CCS can capture carbon emissions from large sources, such as power plants, and store it instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. It’s still a fairly new technology, which is why we want to gather a group of experts together to discuss the environmental, legal and technological questions that have arisen. Also on the theme of climate change, the Ambassador will be giving a speech at the CEU next week about environmental and social housing. Here in Hungary, households account for more than a third of the total energy used – against an EU average of 26% - so it’s critical that this is addressed now. There are a wealth of things that every one of us can do to help too, whether it be little things like remembering to unplug your phone charger when you’re not using it or bigger steps such as insulating your home. If you’re interested in finding out what you can do to help, you might like to visit: Act on CO2 where you can calculate your personal carbon footprint, and pick up some tips on how to reduce the impact you have on climate change.

It’s been a busy week outside of work too. I went to the beautiful Nemzeti Színház on Monday night with a couple of colleagues to watch three men perform all of Shakespeare’s works in just over 2 hours. I’ve never seen Hamlet performed backwards in the space of about 3 minutes before, so it was quite an experience. As indeed was the journey home when our failure to pay attention led to us getting on the wrong tram and ending up totally lost in a very dark and deserted part of the city. Wednesday night saw an early birthday party – my birthday is actually next week but I’ll be on a beach somewhere many miles away - so we decided to celebrate it this week instead. I’ll spare you the details of the night, but suffice to say the Hungarian lesson I had the next morning felt even tougher than normal.

On that note, I am still working away at trying to master this language, but fear it might have me defeated. I’ve never come across anything like it! I’ve been in Hungary for about 18 months now, and it really does feel like home. I love so many things about it: the food (although my waistline might disagree); the friends I have made; the incredible architecture of Budapest; but I’m sure I miss out on a lot by not having a better grasp of the language. But I’ll persevere!

I’ll leave you there, as the European eel waits for no man. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this – over to the next colleague…

Claudia Garland

2nd Secretary EU / Economic
22 February 2008