Tuesday 27 May 2008

More Effort Needed to Reach Targets

No this isn't from school report but could well be and it is a comment that can be levelled at the UK's miserable attempts to cut CO2 emissions as part of the EU's carbon trading scheme.

In the last year the EU's CO2 emissions actually rose by 0.68%. The UK was well above this average at 2.2%. However, overall the rise was below the increase in GDP which suggests that new development is taking environmental concerns into consideration.

Yet the EU has a target to reduce emissions by 20% by 2020. At recent meetings of the Linlithgow Initiative for Climate Change (LICC) one element of these targets was raised. If we are on course or exceeding our targets we're doing more for climate change than if we are leaving all the reductions to the last few years of each of the target periods. Sadly the UK appears to be taking the latter approach which is just not good enough. Indeed to be increasing year on year means that net by the end of this period we'll have done more harm than the good intended by the targets objective when it was set out.

Even the excuse that we have given 59 organisations carbon credits shows that there is lack on effort and energy on the part of major corporations to play their part while this get out scheme from penalty is in operation. As the carbon credit scheme is also used this way by the worlds major polluting countries the USA and China to carry on regardless everyone should be aiming to not take up a carbon credit or do away with the option altogether.

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