Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
Anger as UK's carbon dioxide emissions reach 10-year high
A six-million-tonne question mark was placed over Britain's climate change strategy yesterday with the release of figures showing that UK greenhouse gas emissions, which the Government has pledged to cut radically, are actually soaring.
Emissions of the principal greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, from power stations, motor vehicles and homes, amounted to 560.6 million tonnes last year, 6.4 million tonnes higher than the 2005 figure. The increase of 1.15 per cent means that Britain's emissions are now at the highest level since Labour came to power a decade ago, nearly 3 per cent above 1997.
The disclosure, which seems to be a stark illustration that Britain's climate strategy is not working, despite all the pronouncements of Tony Blair and his ministers, was greeted with concern in Whitehall and with anger and scorn by environmentalists and opposition politicians. They said the Government was clearly not on course to meet its targets of cutting CO2 by 30 per cent by 2020 and 60 per cent by the middle of the century. (It has already admitted it will not meet its long-standing target of a 20 per cent cut by 2010.)
It is especially embarrassing for the Government as only a fortnight ago it launched with much fanfare its Climate Change Bill, proposing to make future targets to cut emissions legally binding and thus - in theory - unmissable.
British official rhetoric about action on global warming has hit new heights in the past six months, with the Treasury-sponsored Stern Review on the economics of climate change, and the publication of the latest report from UN scientists saying that climate change is now an "unequivocal" fact. Yet Britain's own emissions, as yesterday's figures show, are moving in the opposite direction.
More
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2405123.ece
The disclosure, which seems to be a stark illustration that Britain's climate strategy is not working, despite all the pronouncements of Tony Blair and his ministers, was greeted with concern in Whitehall and with anger and scorn by environmentalists and opposition politicians. They said the Government was clearly not on course to meet its targets of cutting CO2 by 30 per cent by 2020 and 60 per cent by the middle of the century. (It has already admitted it will not meet its long-standing target of a 20 per cent cut by 2010.)
It is especially embarrassing for the Government as only a fortnight ago it launched with much fanfare its Climate Change Bill, proposing to make future targets to cut emissions legally binding and thus - in theory - unmissable.
British official rhetoric about action on global warming has hit new heights in the past six months, with the Treasury-sponsored Stern Review on the economics of climate change, and the publication of the latest report from UN scientists saying that climate change is now an "unequivocal" fact. Yet Britain's own emissions, as yesterday's figures show, are moving in the opposite direction.
More
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2405123.ece
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$140.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network
The answer gives you a fascinating insight into the way in which Britain has been governed in the New Labour decade.
Tony Blair is certainly convinced that global warming is a mortal threat to human society, and has done more than any other world leader to put it at the top of the international agenda. Yet the abiding criticism of him from environmentalists has been that his action on the international front has not been matched by action at home.
This criticism is largely justified - and the reason is bizarre. Mr Blair has not been in charge of British domestic policy for the past 10 years. The man who has been in charge is Gordon Brown (a fact startlingly confirmed in a devastatingly frank interview earlier this month by Mr Brown's one-time top official, Lord Turnbull).
Over his 11 Budgets, Mr Brown could have brought in many more, and more radical, measures to tackle climate change than he has. He has in fact done very little. Most of his green taxes have pretended to change behaviour, but in reality merely raise revenue; many simple but effective measures have never been considered.
More
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2405088.ece