Date published: 2005/03/11
The BBC says:
The UK government has announced tougher limits on greenhouse gas emissions following pressure from the European Commission.
The announcement will enable UK firms to join fully with the fledgling European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), a key component in EU plans to combat global warming.
It may also allow the government to avoid a damaging political row at an electorally sensitive time.
Under the ETS, every EU member country has to set a limit - a National Allocations Plan (NAP) - on the amount of carbon dioxide which its industrial plants can produce during the next three years.
Each government must then divide up this limit between the companies involved, each company receiving an 'allowance', which it can trade with other companies at a rate set by the market.
The aim is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in a business-friendly fashion.
Britain published what it called a 'draft' figure in April; the government calculated that during the period 2005-7, UK companies involved in the scheme should produce no more than 736 million tonnes of CO2.
With some small caveats, the European Commission approved the plan.
Then, in October, the government revised its limit upwards, to 756 million tonnes; the reason, said Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett, was that forecasts of Britain's energy demand had changed - the country would need more energy in the next three years, and so would need to produce more CO2.
Environmental groups accused the government of caving in to demands from big business, and the Commission was clearly not convinced that the UK, alone among EU countries, had a case for raising its emissions cap.
The result has been a stand-off, which the Commission has clearly won; the government has gone back to its original figure of 736 million tonnes, though it aims to take legal action against the Commission.
This is one example where big business is on the side of the workers and the so-called environmentalists are on the side of the rich. The rich are happy to dictate to the poor that the latter should not consume any more, and that is what these rules will really mean. Big business of course wants the workers to consume more, because they can then make bigger profits.
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