I'm sorry, Adair, but saying you are optimistic about the success of Climate Change policy is pointless, as the Government has not actually got any seismic ideas to make anything more than small percentage Carbon Emissions reductions.

The British Government has got no clothes as regards Climate Change strategy. There is no way they can cover themselves. There is so much ground to cover to get to 60% cuts by 2050, and there is nothing currently in the toolbox that will give big numbers.

Carbon Capture and Storage ? Slow to implement, unproven on an appropriately large scale.

Nuclear Power ? Slow to implement, cannot hit the main sources of Carbon Emissions, and may well end up as coopted for petroleum refinery needs (how ironic is that ?)

Biofuels ? Locally-sourced agrofuels would be better than rainforest-destroying agrofuels, but currently "uneconomic".

Voluntary Behaviour Change ? Only 20% of the population have made changes to 15% of their emissions.

Renewable Energy ? Allowing the Military and small cultic groups to block wind farms makes this difficult to ramp up.

Carbon Taxation ? Quickest way to lose the General Election.

Carbon Cap & Trade ? Quickest way to do nothing but shuffle currency from place to place.

Hang on. Am I being a bit negative here ?

I mean, could we find that Nuclear Fusion technology suddenly starts working after 35 years of trying ?

Or could we persuade everyone on the planet to plant 200 trees, and not take down any more without replacing them ?

Or could we just kick-start a Global Economic Recession and find that the reduction in production solves the Carbon issue ?

Or could we blame China all over again and let the gun-hungry Americans start a war with them, thereby curtailing Western consumer behaviour because the biggest producer and the biggest consumer nations have invested all their resources and people in fighting and dying ?

Trivial asks, I know.

What I do really want to know is : if, as David Miliband indicates, we can start up a new raft of coal-fired power stations without Carbon Capture and Storage, add airport capacity (cos aviation's "only 6%") and carry on having the same number of cars on the road (but with more efficient engines), how on Earth is the UK Government going to reduce the Carbon Emissions of Great Britain by 60% ?

Ask India to reduce theirs on our behalf ? That won't work. The Indian peoples are already living too sustainably, in general, to reduce their emissions by very much.

Cut off the natural gas supply and electric power to all households in Britain ? Sure-fire vote winner there.

Close all hospitals, schools and public buildings ?

How exactly can 60% be cut if 60% is not cut in each and every sector ? It's beyond me.

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http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL125247120080512?pageNumb...

Climate change chief says optimistic
Mon May 12, 2008 4:31pm BST
By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - Adair Turner, the head of the new Climate Change Committee, sees some tough times ahead guiding the government towards legal carbon reduction goals but says he is quietly confident of success.

The committee that will become a legal entity when the Climate Change Bill becomes law later this year will have to decide what cuts should be achieved by 2050, set five-year carbon budgets and monitor government progress annually.

"A lot of the progress we have made in reducing carbon dioxide emissions so far has been down to circumstances -- the end of the deindustrialisation of Britain in 1990 and the dash for gas replacing coal in power generation," he said.

"Now the difficult stuff starts and we no longer have those factors in our favour," the polymath businessman and academic added in an interview. "But it can be done. I would describe my position as one of optimistic rationality."

The Climate Change Bill sets a target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 26-32 percent by 2020 and at least 60 percent by 2050. It is the first time any government will have set itself such legally-binding targets.

But Turner's committee has been asked by the government to decide in December whether that end target should be raised to the 80 percent many environmentalists have been pushing for.

"Whatever we decide it should be -- 70, 80 or even 90 percent -- is not the problem. I am confident that by 2050 we can have decarbonised electricity generation, and that is crucial," the non-executive director of Standard Chartered Bank said in the bank's plush London headquarters.

"What is much more difficult is what you do in the medium term. What should you aim for in 2020 or 2030. There is a very strong argument for really stretching medium-term targets. We have to see what policy levers are available."

When setting the carbon budgets Turner said his committee of scientists, technologists and economists would look at economic growth forecasts then add technological factors and investment lead times, taking account of the need to front load action.

Scientists predict that world temperatures will rise by 1.8 to 4.0 degrees Celsius this century due to carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport, bringing floods and famines and putting millions of lives at risk.

Turner said promoting energy efficiency and getting the carbon out of electricity through renewables, nuclear power and carbon capture and storage -- grabbing and storing the emissions from fossil-fuelled power stations -- should be relatively easy.

Transport, on the other, hand was much trickier.

Road transport, he said, might cut carbon emissions by improved engine performance driven at least in part regulations and in part by different fuels and even electrification.

What was needed there were long term policy frameworks that would survive both economic and political change and give manufacturers clear indicators to push their research and development.

Air transport, on the other hand, was a much harder nut to crack not just because of the personal choice it involved but the fact that it was growing so fast globally that it would become one of the chief causes of carbon-induced climate change.

"Bringing it into the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme is step one. But it is an areas where so far at least there is no obvious technological fix," Turner said.

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