Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Mandatory Carbon Limits

Well, yes, this is true, the UK is indeed going to set up mandatory reductions in carbon emissions:

Britain on Tuesday became the first country to propose legislation setting binding limits on greenhouse gases as it stepped up its campaign for a new global warming pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

In its draft Climate Change Bill, the government said carbon dioxide emissions had to be cut by 60 percent by 2050, set out five-year carbon-cutting budgets to reach the target and created an independent monitoring committee to check progress annually.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair put climate change at the top of the international agenda when he was head of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in 2005 and Britain could now become the first nation to limit emissions by statute.

Well, yes, but it's difficult to see how they will work in practice. Sure, it's possible to fine big businesses, but each and every household? Or what if it's Government that breaches them? Do the taxpayers then fine the taxpayers for this? Just passing a law doesn't actually do very much now, does it? What, exactly, is the mechanism by which they are enforced?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If this sort of thing doesn't include the USA and China, then it is effectively completely useless and just yet another brake on the country's economy.

This is very likely just Phony Tony busy searching in desperation for a legacy that doesn't include phrases like "Iraq war", "Economic incompetent" and "NHS IT Project".

Watch Gordon drop it like a hot potato as soon as Tony's decently out of the door of number 10; similarly Cameron is most unlikely to keep on with an economic albatross such as this, when he realises how crippled the economy actually it.