Europe and the UK have committed to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by 60 percent by 2050 and the Australian Labor party has now followed suit.
Labor spokesperson for the environment, Peter Garrett, writing for Ninemsn.com.au, claims:
“There is a national consensus developing. Mums and Dads, farmers, business people, scientists, religious leaders and working people are coming to agreement on some broad principles we can adopt to address and deal with dangerous climate change.
These include: setting targets to reduce our greenhouse gas pollution — just like the UK, European Union and many US States have done; creating a carbon emissions trading scheme so business and farmers can take the opportunities such an agreement would give them; ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and joining the 166 other counties who are signatories; and finally, increasing our Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, so we can produce more energy from renewable sources.
That’s why Federal Labor has committed to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, substantially increasing our Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, cutting our carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 and establishing a carbon emissions trading scheme.” [end of quote]
All of this at a time when the British government is admitting it will fail to meet its target, set before the 1997 general election, of cutting CO2 emissions by 20% between 1990 and 2010. The UK’s carbon emissions rose by 1.25% last year, but overall the general trend is still down with total greenhouse emissions equivalent to 658.10 million tonnes of CO2 last year down about 15% from 775.20 million tonnes in 1990.
from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6506223.stm#backup
So how has the UK managed to get its emissions down? And should Labor win the federal election in Australia later this year, what is Peter Garrett really planning?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Terry McCrann thinks that Russ will be worse than Whitlam and that he will bankrupt the nation
“..It’s already fairly clear that Rudd is not big on arithmetic. He’s wisely leaving the sums to the duo of shadow treasurer Wayne Swan and shadow financial minister Lindsay Tanner.
But let me give him one number. A target to cut total emissions by 60 per cent would mean something like a 90 per cent reduction in emissions per person or per unit of economic output.
Just think of that in personal terms. Could you really cut petrol use by 90 per cent? Electricity? And then essentially 90 per cent of everything else?..”
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21464925-5000117,00.html
Rudd, not Russ
British ‘Labor’? I think you mean British ‘Labour’. The Australian and British party names are not spelt the same.
Well I guess when people find out that “doing something” involves actually “doing something” that’s probably when environmental reality will set in. It’s all a bit “warm” and fluffy like a telethon at the moment.
Of course the right will trot out nuclear as the option will scare the shit out of all the left wing and greenies. Good ruse and diversion – I wonder if Howard is serious.
Leaves Rudd between a rock and a hard place. What can he practically do. We’ve got clean coal on the research agenda, everyone wants a high level economy, Labor will sell uranium, so the only thing left between Labor and the Libs, besides big carbon taxes and reductions in living (which will see him kicked out after 3 years) is to ramp up solar in a big way.
Would require a major paradigm shift though. Are we up to and do we want it?
Oh and more funding for adaptation research coz that’s what you’re going to have to do.
And given we’ll probably be stuck with the Libs – just get used to being told bald-faced lies every few weeks – but no whinging allowed now you’re all experienced.
Apart from the spelling , there is another key difference – in the Commons British Labour members can and do cross the floor regularly.
Try that over here and you’re kicked out licketty split!
Always wondered why that is – hard to believe any Australian political institution could be more Stalinist than a European contemporary?
Luke,
1. If nuclear is the best option for big , affordable CO2 cuts in a realistic timeframe which won’t wreck the economy and is safe then we will all stand together and oppose unscientific ignorance won’t we?
2.Rudd can tackle the luddites in his own party ( plenty of ’em there) and adopt the sensible parts of the Government plan such as transfer of clean technology to the developing economies.
3.You surely aren’t suggesting that the telling of bald face lies for cynical political advantage is a purely Coalition attribute?
4. I’m not sure that we’re stuck with Howard – the further to the centre Rudd moves the more certain I am of PM Rudd in November!
Thanks Nexus. I have fixed the spelling of ‘Labour’ in the title.
Rudd is moving further to the…edge!
http://tinyurl.com/2mvcdk
Rudd and Swanns last foray into protecting the interests of future generations was to veto the right Dam, in the right place, at the right time and then ponce about listening to their own voices while the SEQ population doubled in 15 years. These turkeys have already demonstrated a propensity to put short term electoral considerations ahead of core requirements even a single decade into the future. And they hold themselves out as the custodians of the future?
And anyone who seriously believes that farmers are going to sign up to any reafforestation deal sponsored by the same spivs who have just ripped off the carbon credits they were due from the reduction in clearing should get in contact with me. I have a bridge they might like to buy.
ALP lightweights celebrate an hour of thoughtful darkness, an event set to “ricochet around the country and the world for years.”
Stay tuned for more from the Prince of darkness and his galaxy of stars.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/hour-of-thoughtful-darkness-inspires/2007/03/31/1174761821370.html
..and SS Rudd is signalling ‘full steam ahead’ for SA new desal plant which should keep workers at Port Augustas coal fired power stations happy
http://www.ministers.sa.gov.au/news.php?id=1258
“So how has the UK managed to get its emissions down?”
The decrease in CO2 emissions between 2004 and 2005 was due mainly to a reduction in emissions from the domestic sector, which went down by 4.6 per cent. The reason for the estimated increase in emissions between 2005 and 2006 was because the cost of gas went up, causing many generators to switch to coal.
The figures you quote, Jennifer, exclude the reductions generated by UK companies participating in the the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which would put total UK co2 emissions at -11% of the ’90 figure already, and -18.8% when we look at the total GHG basket.
However the figures also exclude international aviation and shipping emissions, which are not covered by Kyoto.
You also asked, “And should Labor win the federal election in Australia later this year, what is Peter Garrett really planning?”.
Let’s just hope it’s not as banal and sophomoric as Howard’s ‘Pacific Solution for trees’ 😉
Just testing your html generator: C02
The other reason the UK can manage it’s CO2 is that they are a large importer of wood and paper products from non-Kyoto nations and this means the emissions from their publishing, packaging and building sectors remain low while these sectors continue to provide a large part of their economic growth.
It is nothing clever, just the standard Eurospiv rat cunning and double standards.
What I find extraordinary is the way the greens are now assigning so much credibility to Stern, a guy who spent his life in the World Bank, the organisation most responsible for the current state of the third world.
These guys have spent the past half century loaning obscene amounts of money to unelected dictators and have calmly watched as those funds found their way back into the European economies via the Swiss banking system.
But rather than follow the money trail to recover these stolen $ billions, they put the screws on the dictator’s victims to continue paying off a loan that they never approved of and never saw any benefit from.
And the greens expect us to put clowns like this in charge of the whole planetary economy?
%$&#@ right off!!
Ministers will still be able to hit their proposed statutory carbon dioxide reduction targets without making deep cuts to transport sector emissions because actions by UK bodies to reduce emissions abroad will count towards target achievement. The little-reported proposal to include international action is contained in the draft Climate Change Bill published earlier this month.
–Andrew Forster, Local Transport Today 29 March
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.
–Michael McCarthy, The Independent, 30 March 2007
The USA a seem to understand reality:
U.S. lawmakers tasked with writing a global warming bill are struggling to find ways to address China, India and other emerging industrial powers. At a House hearing yesterday, a key Republican identified the debate over the growing emissions of developing countries as a make-or-break obstacle for climate legislation.
–Darren Samuelsohn, E&E Daily, 28 March 2007
UK has it all figured it all out, by increasing timber production for fuel they can save 400,000 tonnes of carbon annually. Its just simple maths really, any shopkeeper can do it;
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL2872724620070328
Now they are worrying about importing biofuels from the Great Satan
http://tinyurl.com/2aes95
Problem is that biofuels cost more and could raise the cost of goods
http://www.checkbiotech.org/blocks/dsp_document.cfm?doc_id=14743
They are dead right on that one, Rog. But it seems the same standards will not be applied here in Australia because of local Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane & Perth fetishes about native forests.
Australia could be the first nation on earth to be carbon positive. All they need to do is line the entire membership of the ACF up against a wall and shoot them, along with all their departmental minions.
Then we can restore all the forest management expertise that has been carefully eliminated over past decades and hand all the national parks back to the people and communities that know how to protect them, especially from broadscale clearfiring.
I guess being shot would be a release from listening to Ian. Strange that Ian cares about being carbon positive when he doesn’t believe in AGW. Why bother? Just say stuff it and have some more Byron Gold?
Spoken like a true ideologue, Luke. If there is a 10% probability that CO2 will produce serious warming then it is entirely reasonable to devote 10% of my available time on that possible outcome. But come to think of it, 3 lines will do.