Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Emissions targets to be part of the [UK] Budget
Andrew Grice, The Independent
The Government will next week announce a groundbreaking, legally-binding target to cut Britain’s carbon emissions by at least 34 per cent by 2020 to combat climate change.
Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, told The Independent yesterday that the Government would not achieve the target by buying large amounts of “offsetting” credits – effectively paying poor countries to cut carbon on Britain’s behalf. Instead, it will cap the proportion of the target that can be achieved by offsetting.
… The world’s first “carbon budgets” for the next 15 years will be unveiled by the Chancellor Alistair Darling in his Budget next Wednesday. He will embrace proposals by the Independent Committee on Climate Change, chaired by Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, which called in December for an interim 34 per cut in emissions from 1900 levels by 2020. Lord Turner said the figure should rise to 42 per cent if a new global deal on emissions was signed at crucial talks in Copenhagen this December.
Ministers are also likely to implement Lord Turner’s proposals to ensure “deep domestic emissions cuts” by limiting the amount that could be achieved through offsetting.
(18 April 2009)
Billhook writes:
The UK’s new commitment highlights the farce of US claims to “leadership” on the climate threat – Obama has set a target merely of getting back to 1990 US emissions by 2020 – that is, not even matching the feeble 5% Kyoto cut, and eight years late.
This of course is no encouragement to developing countries to accept any binding constraints – meaning that US media could put the blame on them for a failure at Copenhagen.
But it now appears that EU governments are quite willing to set targets that shame the US, while Lord Turner (cited above) has endorsed the global policy framework of “Contraction & Convergence” both in his report and in answers to parliament.
The Big Energy Shift and Discussing Peak Oil with Ed Milliband
Rob Hopkins, Transition Culture
I travelled to London yesterday for an event which was part of the Big Energy Shift (BES). BES was commissioned and supported by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Welsh Assembly Government and was facilitated by Ipsos Mori. Over the last few months, members of 9 communities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have met for a series of facilitated “deliberative discussions”, looking at the bases on which the public would be prepared to take up renewable energy generation and energy conservation. Yesterday’s meeting was the last in the series, and brought representatives of all the communities involved to London. It was a fascinating day…
…I have to say, I rather liked the guy [Ed Miliband]. He was very good with an audience, walking around among them and engaging people in conversation. He was very amenable, very friendly and approachable, and liked pursuing discussions with people. So, he worked through several questions, and then said “time for one more?”, and out came mine!
My question was “how can the Government still support its position that peak oil is something we don’t need to worry about until 2030, in the light of the growing evidence to the contrary, such as the recent International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook report and its exhortation that “we must leave oil before it leaves us?”
“Who asked this question?” he asked. I put up my hand, and he walked down to where I was sitting. He said, as he walked, that peak oil is something on which there is disagreement from the experts, and that the tone of my question suggested that I knew what I was talking about (!) He then got to me and asked me why I had asked the question.
I said that there is mounting evidence that peak oil is an issue of profound importance and that there is less debate than he might think. I argue, I said, that when planning for the future, we need to look at peak oil and climate change together, just responding to climate change is insufficient. When we look at peak oil, we need to look at the rebuilding of resilience alongside the cutting of carbon. The challenge presented by this country’s dependence on liquid fuels is huge, I said.
His response rather danced around the issues, and my account of it is compiled from near illegible notes I attempted to make as I looked the other way, trying to engage with him as he talked. Anyway, the general gist was as follows. Oil prices have recently fallen again, and this brings with it a danger in assuming that those low prices will stay, but we really cannot assume that those prices will stay low. Two things we can be certain of are climate change and the fact that demand from India and China will drive oil prices back up again at some point. The fact that oil prices will rise again is a very difficult message for politicians. What Government can do, he concluded, is to drive for low carbon solutions. We need them, we need to plan for them, and we have ensure that they are fair. What one thing would you suggest government do about the peak oil question, he asked me…
(21 April 2009)
Prince Charles to publish attack on big business in eco book and film
Adam Vaughan, Guardian
The Prince of Wales is to make a scathing attack on big business’ environmental impact with the launch of a new book and documentary film. The book, called Harmony, is due to be published in 2010 by HarperCollins and the prince is reportedly waiving his author’s fee, although royalties will go to his charitable foundation, The Prince’s Trust.
In an echo of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, which evolved from a slideshow presentation into a hit eco documentary, the prince’s film is currently being shot in the US. Based on an exploration of the need for people to live in harmony with nature, the documentary is being produced by Balcony Films, whose previous credits include feature films such as The Fabulous Baker Boys and GI Jane, and documentaries including Four Conversations with Conservatives about One Thing.
“I believe that true ‘sustainability’ depends fundamentally upon us shifting our perception and widening our focus, so that we understand, again, that we have a sacred duty of stewardship of the natural order of things,” said the prince in a statement yesterday. “In some of our actions we now behave as if we were ‘masters of nature’ and, in others, as mere bystanders. If we could rediscover that sense of harmony; that sense of being a part of, rather than apart from nature, we would perhaps be less likely to see the world as some sort of gigantic production system, capable of ever-increasing outputs for our benefit – at no cost.”
