Tuesday
Mar082011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill As if things weren't bad enough
The EU continues its efforts to deindustrialise the entire continent:
Europe's climate chief has beaten off intense lobbying from businesses to secure a key victory in the battle over greenhouse gas targets.
Connie Hedegaard, the EU climate change commissioner, published on Tuesday afternoon her long-awaited report into how the EU can toughen its climate targets in a cost-effective manner, with a proposal that the EU could raise its current targets on emissions cuts from 20% emissions cuts to 25% cuts by 2020.
I think this is going to turn out very badly.
Reader Comments (56)
@Lord Beaverbrook
As usual Holyrood will be posturing as a "go-getting" government wot has came up with this idea all itself, all the while working to the longer term agenda of the EU.
see eg:
http://www.eubusiness.com/Members/climateanswers/10-10-14
25% cut in CO2 emissins is easy man. Look at it this way: If have to do nothing really astonishig except deindustrialise Europe and go back living in the pre-Victorian era. Plain simple.
@LordBeaverbrook
Do the Chinese know about their 40-50% reduction target?
Yes, their energy 2015 plan includes 40 GW of new nuclear, 120 GW of new hydro, 70 GW of windmills and 5 GW of solar panels.
China has grown to be the world's top energy producer and user, according to the China Energy Research Society. Its annual energy consumption totaled 3.25 billion tonnes of coal equivalent last year, up 5.9 percent from a year earlier, government data showed Monday. Coal accounts for around 70 percent of China's energy mix, 30 percentage points higher than the world average level.
Good luck hiding the pea.
Councils have to calculate their emissions and will pay fines accordingly which will increase year on year - all to make sure they reduce their emissions. (Businesses have to fill in some return too but not sure of where the cut-off point is for them re size of the business). This is part of the Carbon Reduction Commitment. For every tonne of carbon emitted the council will have to pay £12 in 2011/12 and 12/13, £16 in 2013/14 and increasing amounts thereafter.
What really hacks me off is that it is all one big scam. Our council is looking at "rationalising" its property holdings, i.e. selling them off, and by getting rid of some of them they can show that they have reduced their carbon emissions. In fact, nothing is reduced, those buildings keep on having the same power requirement (unless some bright spark (ho, ho) installs PV or whatever); merely that the council has removed that building and can legitimately claim to have reduced emissions and not have to pay the fine.
We have also had a 0% governemnt loan to "invest" in LED bollards, installing switches in our lampposts to turn lights off between midnight and 5am as a way of reducing emissions. The subsidy has had to come from government as it is uneconomic to do it. Some "investment", eh? And here's the payback - "In total the £1.2m invested in 2010/11 will save £275,000 pa on energy bills, or a total of £1.37m over 5 years." Hardly worth it is it? And I expect that's not including those fabulous climate change officers' salaries for doing all this worthy work.
The investment will continue at £1m per annum and will take us 48% of the way to meeting our target.
Apart from doing this to reduce energy bills and reuce liabilities under the CRC, the council is also doing this "to improve our reputation [!!] by reducing its environmental impact while saving money" and "to lead by example in the low carbon transition for [the county]". Yabba, yabba doo.
And however much a number of councillors think it is all a load of rubbish, we play the game because if we don't we'll be hit by those extra taxes which means that our council tax will go up.
Where are our MPs? Why aren't they leaping up and down pointing this rubbish out to our esteemed leader.
For the last 40 years China's electricity production has grown at almost exactly 10% per ann and entirley non-coincidentally its economy has grown at 10%
Our electricity is slightly declining as the last nukes retire and politicians promise to cut it by up to 80%. And entirely non-coincidentally we are in recesion.
Every politician who knows anything about the economy knows of the link between power and GNP.
We could get into Chinese levels of growth or better. India's nuclear electricity increased 35% last year though that is exceptional. All thatbis required is for our thieving Luddite politicians to stop preventing it (if necesary by spending their time hanging form lamposts instead).