Government proposes binding emissions targets
If there’s one thing the current administration like it’s targets. So it’s not surprising to hear of a proposal today to set binding targets for (issue of the week) carbon emissions. The draft Climate Change Bill calls for an independent panel (though with final approval still lying with ministers) to be set up which will set 5-yearly “carbon budgets”. The final aim is to cut carbon emissions by 60% by 2050.
It’s all very ambitious and forward thinking but what it’s not, and what there’s a lack of in general amongst all the green posturing, is actual action. The only actual action we’ve seen in the past week has come from the EU in the form of a ban on inefficient lightbulbs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for accountability and at some point it will be important that we can hold the government to task but right now someone has to actually break from the pack and do something concrete.
Not only do we need to see some action, it’s also time for an end to the myth that none of this is going to hurt. The government line tonight seems to be that they can achieve their targets solely by extending the emissions trading scheme (err…presumably in a form that works) to cover more companies and by soft measures (loft insulation grants etc.) for the rest of us. I don’t personally believe that this is the most effective way of going about things. The vast majority of us piss away energy in a vast number of pointless ways every day (the school run, lights left on…). No one can claim to be uninformed about the causes or potential dangers of climate change but the amount that most people have shifted their way, in spite of what we know, is tiny. It’s time, in my opinion, for punitive measures to break us out of our bad habits. By changing the ways of the people there would hopefully be a significantly reduced need for undesirable options such as nuclear power and potentially competitiveness damaging (or plain ineffective) schemes for industry.
March 20th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
I like the article ‘Jonny’ (if that really is your name).
Read the article in this week’s London Review of Books on climate change. There is an accurate summation of the political programme on the issue by George Monbiot’s researcher.
Something along the lines of: all these reports and papers that are commissioned aren’t a sign of the government’s policy. They ARE the government’s policy.
More reports, more and even more reports actually prevent them from DOING anything!