Tuesday 28 October 2008

Governments Move to Green Up Our Act

Yesterday the Scottish Parliament voted announced it is to set annual targets to ensure continuous progression to the reduction of emissions by 80% by 2050. They also voted to include all six major greenhouse gas emissions* rather than just Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in these targets.

It comes the day ahead of the Westminster vote which looks likely to include aviation and shipping emissions in UK targets. Ed Miliband has also said earlier this month that he is looking to increase UK reductions from 60% to 80% matching the Scottish target.

With both the Governments in Westminster and Holyrood taken emboldened steps to include more of the proposals of the Kyoto Protocol we need them to reach out to others, especially USA, Russia and China, to also do their bit. The three largest contributors to climate change through their emissions have yet to make bold or indeed even tentative strides to do much in line with many others in the world. We need the big three on board before much longer. It is not an excuse for them to rely on market forces alone, nor of China to say it needs to catch up industrially to hide the fact that cleaner alternatives and practises are available and should be encouraged as much as possible.

* The other five are methane, nitrous oxide, Hydrofluorcarbons (HFCs), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), Sulphur Hexafluoride (SF6).

2 comments:

  1. Dude, there was no vote yesterday: it was just a Scottish Government announcement.

    And the bill does indeed now look better, but perhaps you could talk to your colleagues here about getting the targets up from 80% to 90%, and requiring an sector-by-sector action plan to deliver the reductions?

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  2. Whoops...quite right that's what I get for getting excited about today's Common's vote and this news all on the same day.

    As for the second bit that should be achievable. We as a party are backing 100% renewable energy generation for Scotland by 2050. Amongst the other proposals for all public building to generate renewable energy on site, all government buildings to be carbon neutral local and micro energy production etc.

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