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Shipping and aviation will count in emission targets, electric cars get new funding

Posted by jossc on 27 October 2008.

Planes at Heathrow

Energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband has agreed to include emissions from aviation and shipping in the new Climate Change Bill, which is due to become law next month. Having already taken the important step of upping Britain's commitment to curb its carbon footprint from 60 per cent to 80 per cent by 2050 during his first week in office, he's now accepted an ammendment to the bill proposed by rebel Labour MPs to include the carbon footprint of the aviation and shipping industries.

Together aviation and shipping account for 7.5 per cent (and rising) of the UK's carbon output, so any plan to cut emissions which did not include them wouldn't really be worth the (hopefully recycled) paper it's written on. By agreeing to include them, Ed Miliband has plugged a gaping hole in the Bill and indicated that he intends to make the new legislation as strong as possible. Which, given that the powerful lobbies of the two industries have been trying to keep them out of the equation, is a demonstration of commitment that we should all applaud.

In a separate announcement on emissions, transport secretary Geoff Hoon is to allocate £100 million of new money to promote the use of electric cars across the country. Again, a positive move, although given that £100 million is the same amount that the government spends on widening a mile and a half of the M1, perhaps not quite so generous as it might appear at first glance. But to give credit where it's due, electrifying our transport network is a vital step in the fight against climate change and will be key to reducing our dependence on foreign oil, so it’s very encouraging that the government has recognised this.

Parking meter for electric cars only

But if the Prime Minister is truly committed to the wider development of electric cars, he'll need to go a lot further and introduce incentives like free parking and cheaper road tax for people who decide to go electric, closed-loop battery recycling (where manufacturers are obliged to recycle batteries which have reached the end of their life) and a renewed focus on improving public transport. There is a real opportunity here for Mr Brown and co, because if ministers can get this right then Britain’s ailing car industry could become a trailblazer in emerging electric technologies, creating thousands of green collar jobs and exporting zero emission cars to developing countries around the world. Let's hope that they're willing and able to take it.

Tags:
shipping, public transport, electric vehicles, co2 emissions, climate change bill, aviation
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UK Gov's Climate Bill, 2008

Posted by 41dog on 27 October 2008.

from greenpeace.com/blogs

re: UK Climate Bill, 2008

positive progress at last, but...

Question is, does this Bill include emissions from MoD transport and combat vehicles?

As My government are expected to borrow upto £110 Billion Pounds, can we have some of this new borrowing to help fix my backyard please? To help me put Solar Power on our roofs for example? At least we know Solar Power is not funda
mentally flawed, as I believe the Banking System is so flawed? eg Abusive, corrupt and incompetent, could we same the same for this Climate Bill?

Is the whole basis of our economy eg guaranteed growth over the decades, so fundamentally flawed that a decent Climate Strategy that fixes our backyard, is imposible? I'd like to see more progress and media focus on the important issues like Solar Power and the solutions we need eg Home Insulation grants and more, to help us fix our backyard, Save the World, End Poverty and Help the Aged.

But my patience is rather short these days, in a climate of economic recession on top of climate change, it seems we are wasting an awful lot of time on legal and media distractions. I'd like to reinforce and strongly suggest solutions like Solar Power on our roofs for Boscombe and elsewhere but I'd rather spend £10 Billion before the winter weather sets in, to maximize the benefits fixing our backyard represents - spending a penny now, rather than pounds further down the line, like today!

Maybe I'm seeing all these distractions too much, but I am convinced Global Warming is an established problem requiring the highest level of achievement and economic investment in the renewable industries like Solar, needs to be Mankind's Highest Priority! We need to mobilize our resources away from consumable industries like motor vehicle, mobile phone and similar high demand industries - to shut them down immediately and, redirect economic and industrial resources and finances into the renewables also immediately. We need to direct our National Interest immediately into renewable industrial output so that, while the risks are manageable but still largely unpredictable, we have a greater chance or probability to fix the problems causing Global Climate Change and economic recession expected to hit us this winter - The Second Winter of Discontent? Now the actual weather is starting to freeze up like the global economy!

Serve us right! We should have said this twenty or even thirty years ago! It didn't take Adolf Hitler thirty years to invade Poland and kick off the Second World War did it? WHy has it taken us thirty years to decide there's even a problem?

We need to make deeper cuts in our Carbon Deficit, as well as pay off our economic debts as soon as possible. Move our economies away from the disposable culture of modern global activity and onto a far more severe diet! We are all economically overweight!

Let's just do it! Strip away the luxury and goto amore utilitarian realities instead of the wasteful aberant behaviour of constant growth and consumerism, sounds like Green Puritanism or summat don't it? Green Communism maybe! I'd prefer Freedom from recession in the longer term - as we'll no longer consume our world! We'll live free from debt and into my dream future!

That's the kind of change of behaviour I'd like to be involved in, for fox's sake, do we want Solar Power on our roofs or not? Then let's get on with it and start installing these things before we have to move from global flooding! It's time to build ourselves an ark people, while we still got trees to plant and not floodlands!

Isn't that the job of my Prime Minister and government and Parliament to make sure they fix our backyard? I'm not seeing any real progress towards this admirable goal for thew sake of our children and succeeding generations who'll inherit what we leave behind! Landfills and toxic climate change? Or can we expect our grandchildren to say, 'for fox's sake no, we'll not look after you when your old and infirm' - more vulnerable and therefore a poorer world for us all?

The economic collapse of modern society? The collapse of our ecosystem? Or an opportunity to fix our backyard and do the noble things we must and are contractually obliged to do as contemporary landlords? Is this heresy? Or hypocrasy? The opposite of what we are actually doing to kill off this World?

The equal and opposite reaction to the action of man's pollutions in parallel to the corruption of fat greedy landlords like the British Banking system we have built? Complication of insanity? Well here the S.O.S. was sent out twenty years ago and now we hear it! Twenty years to translate Morse Code?

I hereby demand ownership of this economic stake in my future! Trust me, you're having an heart attack and I'm calling the paramedic! This is my manifesto to fix the greedy bankers and keep the economic investment I have made to this fund for the sake of mine and my children's children's future! I am not complacent here, I need you stop playing stupid games and start fixing my backyard or let me have Solar Power on the roofs on Boscombe - I'll knock on the doors of every resident and advise them to do the same as I'm doing now! It is my lawful duty to lobby for a more radikal 'it's broke and we're fixing it! mode of green economic activity of this planet. Thinking green and acting local, and fixing global!

Burn me for economic heresy if you have to, at least I'll not see the iceberg heading your way when I'm dead! But until I am cold and dead, I'm gonna do my lawful duty to fix this planet koz I'm thinking of the next generation of spacemen to inherit this earth!

Fix it, please, fix it all - that's all I care about, except my friends and neighbours here in Boscombe, the next generation coming up and all of us!

"That is all, krash out!"

Steve (41dog)

Do you want Solar Power on your roof?
Bournemouth Borough Council say yes, you have our full support!!
Dorset Energy Advice Center say yes and can help you pay for it!! - The Low Carbon Building Programme provide grants of £400 towards it, for info see www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk

I commit to persuade my government to support World Peace!
Why don't you make your commitment on World Peace Day today?
goto PeaceOneDay.org

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