Date published: 2006/09/01
The BBC says:
Conservative leader David Cameron has joined environmental campaigners in calling for a law on climate change to be promised in the next Queen's speech. In a letter to Tony Blair, green groups are pressing for legislation that would set targets for 3% annual cuts in greenhouse gases across the UK economy.
...
The UK is unlikely to meet its target of reducing CO2 emissions by 20% by 2010, but could reach a cut of 15-18% by then, a government report earlier this year said.The government set the goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2010 when it came to power in 1997.
At a news conference in Devon with Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper, Mr Cameron said climate change was the biggest challenge facing the world and politicians had to work together.
Binding targets on cutting carbon emissions every year from now until 2050 would take that issue out of politicsm he argued.
"Then you can really ask politicians what are you going to do to achieve those targets," he said.
Yes Mr Cameron, "what are you going to do to achieve these targets"? Will you and your cabinet colleagues stop their airplane junkets all over the world? Will you stop the massive (indirect) emission subsidies given to London commuters? Will you double the average power bills of households so that a suitable carbon tax is paid? And what will a Tory government do if the target is missed in a given year, will you shut down a power station at Christmas and let the country sit back in the dark (while you are sitting on a beach in Australia)?
A reduction of 3% per annum from today (i.e. 2006) means a reduction of 11% by 2010 (from today), a reduction of 35% by 2020 and a reduction of 74% by 2050. It's possible but not that likely (except that the British economy might have gone seriously south by then for other reasons, and of course that is one way to achieve the targets, just kill the economy, which seems to be the favoured method of the so-called environmentalists).
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