UK - Aggressive New Stance From Cameron On Climate - 4 Years Delay In Deciding On Targets

[hatrack]

LONDON — The British government's long-awaited legislation to secure investment in low-carbon energy will not include a target to cut emissions by 2030, according to details released on Friday.

After months of wrangling, the coalition government of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats reached agreement late on Thursday on an Energy Bill to be published next week.

In a compromise, the coalition partners agreed to delay until 2016 a decision on cutting emissions from the power sector by 2030, but their move was heavily criticised by environmental campaigners.

The negotiations have been characterised as a battleground between finance minister George Osborne, who favours energy generated by gas-powered plants and the Lib Dems, who want clean energy sources such as renewables and nuclear.

EDIT

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iNOqZBfEA880D-IoxRpqTjWMh8Wg

[GliderGuider]

1. I'd say, "Tick tock, boys and girls"

Except that since watching Wasdell's talk this morning, I'm pretty sure it doesn't make a damn bit of difference.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1017&pid=44079

[CRH]

6. Hi GG, I tried that link on Saturday and the download, ...

crashed my computer. It is the normal problem the same as I have with MPG's and video. Too old a computer and a network that badly fluctuates from broadband speeds to near dial up.

Is the download worth a trip to an internet cafe, with a faster computer and a more reliable network speed?

[GliderGuider]

7. Here's my takeaway from the talk.

We have created a meta-stable complex adaptive system out of global civilization and the climate.
Such systems are characterized by feedbacks running upon feedbacks.
As a result they can change state very, very fast.
We appear to be very close to such a state change.

If you accept those principles, there's no need to worry about the download.

[CRH]

8. Thank you GG, ...

I rode the bus into Grecia proper and visited a internet cafe and viewed the presentation.

Actually, for me, it is was liberating, in that it is very obvious there is nothing we are going to do to stop the heating at this point. David Wasdell tries to leave the viewer with hope, but fails miserably, the earth is currently experiencing several tipping points that are accelerating and were described as run away warming. He comes off as well researched and very credible. I researched his bio before viewing, which adds significant foundation.

He did answer one of the climate sensitivity questions I've been researching, I.E., does the climate sensitivity factor increase lineal to GHG concentrations, or is it variable and possibly exponential as heat, feeds back on heat. Sadly the indications was the later, when enough feed backs begin to combine, the GHG concentrations can be static and the heating continues independent of normal hysteresis. It is not directly lineal. It is the gorilla in the living room, no climate scientist wants to talk about.

As I said earlier, it is liberating in that, barring a yet to be invented geo engineering solution, now total focus can be on adaption strategies, which is basically where I was at before, but now I know why.

Thanks for your time and response. hrh

[GliderGuider]

10. I side much more with Lovelock than with the end of Wasdell's talk.

I can easily accept that nothing can, will, or maybe even should be done. I'm not quite the curmudgeonly recluse that Wasdell paints Lovelock as, but I'm much more fatalistic than Wasdell.

If you look at Wasdell's bio, he has a long background in ecumenical religious activities, as well as training as a psychotherapist and as an organizational change facilitator. In the latter role he has worked closely with many large organizations and governments to facilitate their passage through rapid change.

Despite his clear-eyed view of what's happening to the climate and why, his background speaks to me of a man who has an abiding faith in human exceptionalism. So it's not surprising that he gets so passionate in his comment that "I simply! cannot! accept! that there is nothing that can be done!" as he pounds his fist in his hand.

[NoOneMan]

2. Why not 40 years?

We will have better models by then

[hatrack]

3. Yes, we must wait until perfect models show all permutations through all of space-time

We wouldn't want to do anything . . . risky, now would we?

[XemaSab]

4. We're going to be sitting there on our aircraft carrier city-states

arguing that the Pan-Antarctic Ice Omnibus Modeling and Assimilation System under-predicted the collapse of the ice sheet by 5% and therefore climate change is faek and Al Gore is fat and George Soros has hella money.

[ljm2002]

5. And our leaders continue to fiddle...

...while the planet continues to burn.

We need global action at the people-to-people level. We need to bypass the idiot elites and figure out for ourselves how we can modify our lifestyles NOW. We need to figure out clean energy solutions that will work in developing countries too. We need to understand that the whole paradigm must change and rapidly.

The idiot elites will never figure anything out in time, because, as Upton Sinclair once remarked, It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

Well this is far beyond salaries, this is survival for us and for the planet. Okay, okay, technically the planet will survive -- if by "survive" you mean become a nearly uninhabitable hell-hole instead of the verdant and wonderful cradle of life that we have all been privileged to inhabit.

[Nihil]

9. For those outside the UK ...

... quite apart from the frustration from yet another political delay (add it to the list),
that delay is pushing the "decision on targets" out to the next election cycle.

The importantance of this little point is that the only obstruction to the Tory plan
of "more fossil fuel" (driven strongly by Osborne's love affair with gas) is the minor
obstruction currently offered by their "coalition" partners, the Lib Dems ("who want
clean energy sources such as renewables and nuclear" - their quote, not mine).

The next election will see the Lib Dems wiped from the map due to their perfidy and
downright treachery since the last election - they've betrayed almost every electoral
promise and just above every voter who saw them as a sane alternative thus they
will be justifiably punished by exile to the same political obscurity that their Liberal
predecessors inhabited for decades.

This means that, absent a *major* effort from the non-Blairite fraction of the Labour
party, the Tories will get in and the future for anything related to the environment
(rivers, marine protection, clean energy, pollution control, recycling, ...) would be
decidedly bleak.

Boy is that a cheerful thing to look forward to ...