The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Friday, May 01, 2009

Does Whitehall Have Enough Nuclear Power Stations?

The Sustainable Development Commission reports that the Government is going to miss its own pitifully inadequate targets for cutting carbon emissions. The Government's own figures, which are no doubt as reliable as any the Government has produced for civilian casualties in Iraq or green shoots in the economy, show a decrease in emissions of 6.3% in the past ten years. The target is twelve and a half per cent by 2011-2012. The Commission also noted that emissions could be cut by sixty-eight per cent, and the green technology and construction sectors helped, by an investment of slightly less than has already been spent on rewarding the causes of the current financial crisis. The Government's chief sustainability officer (sustainability being merely a single, vaguely desirable aspect of government, rather than an overriding concern of every department) said that the Government would be "revising targets and commitments", rather than changing its practice. There is a also a "national goal" of an eighty per cent cut in emissions by 2050; fortunately, this can be safely ignored as it lies beyond the lifetime of the present Parliament and is merely legally binding.

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