UK Government Commits to 80% GHG Cut by 2050
17 October 2008
UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband committed the UK to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80% on 1990 levels by 2050. The prior target was 60%.
In a wide-ranging Commons statement, his first since being appointed to the new Department of Energy and Climate Change, established 3 October by the Prime Minister, the Secretary said that the Government would make the target binding in law by amending the Climate Change Bill currently going through Parliament.
The 80% target implements the recommendations of Lord Turner’s Climate Change Committee.
His report found that to hold global warming to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, commonly accepted as the threshold for the most dangerous changes in the climate, global emissions must fall by 50-60% by 2050.
Lord Turner concluded that for Britain to play its proper part the UK should cut our emissions not by 60% but by 80%. He concluded that the target should apply not just to CO2, but to all six of the Kyoto greenhouse gasses.
And he concluded that while there are uncertainties about how to allocate emissions from international flights and shipping, they too should play their part in reducing emissions.
Mr Speaker, the government accepts all of the recommendations of the Committee on Climate Change.
—Secretary Miliband
They have NO intention of doing this.
It is 42 years in the future - they guys who signed off on this will be dead and everyone will have forgotten.
And they would be crazy to even try, unilaterally.
These things need to be done globally, or else you just wreck your economy to no end.
Posted by: mahonj | 17 October 2008 at 10:16 AM
It is amazing that UK children and adults no longer know the story of the English king Canute who demonstrated that even the king could not command the tide to retreat.
It is very easy for a very few people of the world to get together in a city called KYOTO and make plans for nations and people who have not elected them.
There should be a world wide referendum on CO2 and there has been; all live people have voted to continue to release CO2. The people have spoken, now forget CO2 goals.
Great Britain can best reduce its CO2 by nuclear power.
CANDU reactors could be built on every former nuclear energy site to eliminate any need for massive clean ups.
The only natural gas power should come from home and business cogeneration units. No new gas powered boilers of any type should be allowed that are not co-generation units.
Since the UK government is supporting the banks, it now can take the necessary step of setting up a nuclear power agency. This agency is charged with building and operating Nuclear generating stations in appropriate places and installing DC transmission cables all over the country and to Europe.
The lower interest rates on money to the government will allow the electricity to be produced at low prices. The majority of the costs of producing nuclear power is the financing cost. The power produced will provide enough income to repay for the costs as well as provide revenues to the government for more reactors. Electricity will be sold to Germany and Denmark and other places that rely on coal burning. This income will provide revenue for more building and government operations.
The first goal is to eliminate fossil fuel production of electricity. The second goal is to get people to use electricity for all the energy needs of their homes with the use of heat pumps operated on electricity. The electricity can be cheap enough to allow the use of simple electric fires on occassion.
Eventually, the electricity will be cheap enough to run many industrial heating needs including melting metals and making aluminum or at least recyling it.
Idustries that require large amounts of heat at low temperatures should be grouped around nuclear reactors for the direct delivery of CO2 free, very low cost, heat.
The advent of modern electronics allows a more efficient and reliable Direct Current distribution system. All new transmission lines can be underground DC cables. The DC nature of the transmission means also that energy is stored in the very cable system which eliminates short interuptions. Battery banks and electric flywheels can compensate for brief high demand and longe interuptions. The cables are to be allowed a wide range of operating voltages that is easily compensated with the receiving electronics at the user that converts much of the power to standard AC voltages. Permanently installed electronic lights can operate directly from the DC voltages as can motors with electronic drives.
Energy for the people and economy of a country is now too important a function to be allowed to be controlled by speculative investors. The government must own and manage the major electrical supply of a country which now must be nuclear to reduce CO2. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 17 October 2008 at 11:26 AM
How about 160% reduction in 2025? It will sound even more impressive.
Posted by: Andrey Levin | 18 October 2008 at 02:02 AM
These people still wallowing in the past? Why don't they focus on a realistic Energy Bill to figure out how the UK can generate sustainable electricity. The issue today is Energy. Everything else tags along.
Posted by: nrg nut | 18 October 2008 at 01:32 PM
"we all know that signing up to an 80 per cent cut by 2050 is the easy part.
The hard part is meeting it, and meeting the milestones that will show we're on track.
For us in Britain, these will be shaped by the recommendation of the Committee on Climate Change, who will advise us in December on the first fifteen years of Carbon budgets - national limits to our total emissions. We will report next year on how we will meet them." Ed Miliband.
I hope he means annual carbon budgets.
Splitting down long term targets into annual budgets is essential if these targets are to have any practical effect.
The approach taken by California of mandating the ARB to come up with practical measures to meet targets is far more effective.
Ed Miliband is a contender to be the next leader of the Labour party. His long term career in politics could be influenced by his success or failure in tackling climate change.
So far both the Labour Party & the Conservative Party have been talking of long term targets but failing to take action. Neither party has produced a plan as to how Britain can achieve reductions in greenhouse gases.
Indeed no organisation in Britain including Greenpeace has published a document setting out how Britain could cut greenhouse gases by 80% and still meet demand and stay competitive. Australia is acutely aware that reducing GHG emissions carries the risk of reducing the competitiveness of the economy of the country versus Chinda. Even though Britain has lost most of its manufacturing to low cost countries, no political party or environmental group in Britain has considered the effect on the economy of increasing energy costs in Europe to reduce GHG emissions while the growth of the economy in China is powered by new coal-fired power plants.
Posted by: Polly | 18 October 2008 at 05:35 PM
Polly, dear, get real.
UK society is ruled by a bunch of pathological liars. Nobody in the world get a hood what they are saying.
Posted by: Andrey Levin | 19 October 2008 at 01:41 AM
If ever there was a proof needed that the whole CO2 issue is a scam. And a cover excuse for increased taxation, this new "target" is it.
Why has it gone from -20% to -50% to -80%. Is there any scientific reason to expect to seek these exact round per centages? Except that they sound good to polemicists, (who can't count)? If there were ANY data to indicate what, if any reduction is really needed to be achieved, it surely would not have turned out to be nice round numbers like these. I might believe some number such as 6.76% rising to 27.3% to 38.8%. At least the number quoted would have had to be derived and to be extracted from some scientific assesment, somewhere.
This latest daft idea is to promise 80% reduction over 1990 levels. In my opinion that would take the UK back to the levels emitted in Cromwell's days of the Glorius Revolution.
If I recall correctly that was in the midst of the Little Ice Age, and massive famines due to crop failures, induced by the frigid weather. Surly a target worth seeking... NOT!
Posted by: stas peterson | 19 October 2008 at 08:42 AM
Polly, take a look at the recent Canadian national election. The environment did not register AT ALL on the polling meters. People re-elected the Conservatives to protect their pocket books.
The issue today is not GHG - nobody believes or cares. They DO care about energy and economies. So, drop the climate position and move to Global Energy Independence. That does NOT mean petroleum-based energy - it means alternative/sustainable energy.
The longer the play makers take to implement this message - the more environmental damage accumulates. If you want to save the environment (and "climate") - lay out a thirty year plan to achieve sustainable Energy Independence.
Posted by: sulleny | 19 October 2008 at 10:24 AM
I'm disappointed at the negative attitudes boys,
Wouldn't normally mind at all but that the one attempt to constructive criticism gets a gender based put down.
So the world is worse off for aspirational targets?
Posted by: arnold | 19 October 2008 at 10:59 AM
"So the world is worse off for aspirational targets?"
No. It's worse off when it discovers it's being hoodwinked.
Posted by: | 19 October 2008 at 12:35 PM