The case against an 80 per cent mandatory target for emissions cuts 4

TaxPayers Alliance Better Government

The Government have recently committed to increase their legally-binding pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions from 60 per cent to 80 per cent of the 1990 level by 2050. This will be included in the climate change bill, which will get its third reading on October 28th. Setting such a target would be a serious mistake. It would risk compelling a government to take economically disastrous actions – such as putting in place draconian green taxes and regulations – and do little to curb global emissions, and mitigate expected climate change. To read the full report, click here.

Key Findings

If the UK continues to improve its emissions intensity at the rate it managed between 1990 and 2005, then a 78 per cent cut in the expected level of GDP in 2050 would be required to bring emissions down to the target. This means that GDP would be nearly 4 per cent lower in 2050 than it was in 1990.

The UK’s 1990-2005 record was based on one-time gains from the ‘dash for gas’. If we revert to the average developed country performance, then an 86 per cent cut in cut in the expected level of GDP in 2050 would be required to bring emissions down to the target. This means that GDP would be 38 per cent lower in 2050 than it was in 1990.

For the UK to meet its target without sacrificing GDP in 2050, emissions intensity cuts of around 5.8 per cent each year would be needed. This is more than twice the amount Britain managed between 1990 and 2005 and three and a half times the amount developed countries managed between 1993 and 2005. It would therefore require remarkable technological development. It is clear that politicians have not thought through how this might be achieved.

With the onset of the financial crisis, a range of other industrial countries are increasingly sceptical of aggressive action to cut emissions. In the absence of a global agreement, unilateral action to cut emissions in Britain would increase costs and lead to jobs and production moving abroad. This would export emissions, and would do little to reduce global emissions.

Matthew Sinclair, Policy Analyst at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

“Politicians are making radical promises to cut emissions but don’t appear to have thought through how these can be delivered without doing crippling damage to the UK economy. Those sacrifices would probably be in vain as it appears less and less likely that other countries will follow our example. Instead of putting in place regulations and taxes that hurt the economy we should put British creativity and innovation to work and develop the technologies that can deliver a safer, cleaner world.”

TaxPayers Alliance

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Hardeep_Singh

Yet another simple minded political move by the party of buffoons passign themselves off as new/old/passed-it/still hanging on Labour.
Do these rather intellectually challenged people not realise that the simple uninterrupted evolution of techn ology will in itself achieve these cuts. Just because the political landscape is the same unaltered freeloading fest it doesn’t mean the sharp edge of industry is. Just compare the evolution of the jet engines that powered the first Boeing 747 flight across the atlantic in 1970 which produced approximately 24,000lbs of thrust compared to the 93,000lbs each today, that’s a startling increase of almost 400%. Coupled with the reduction in fuel consumption and other emissions which have been cut you can see clearly how things have improved.
You don’t need policians other than to “hang on” for taking the credit for projects to improve. The far sighted targets of Labour are simply passed onto the public because they are too far into the past to be measured nor accounted for. Remember the similiar comments back in the late 90s about how individual Ministers would resign if targets weren’t achieved or services deliverd none of it was mentioned again.
Besides this emissions issue is a lovely earner for the non manufacturing countries to sell their credits to those in need of it i.e. Brazil, India, South Africa, China, Indonesia, etc. Sounds like paying rent to the landlords of the EU it stinks.
Steve Robson

presumably you people don’t believe in the fact of man made global warming anyway. I guess you prefer unfettered capitalism (with all its recent successes!) to not be undermined by inconvenient evidence that its destroying the planet.
Tim

Hey Steve – mystified as to where you got the idea that capitalism has been ‘unfettered’ recently. To look at some obvious examples, we have a government which taxes and spends vast amounts (so that’ll not be capitalism) and there is a Financial Services Authority.
Similarly, I have yet to see any evidence that carbon emmissions are ‘destroying the planet’ – after all, there have been several periods in the last 2000 years where the world was warmer than it is today. And the globe has been cooling for the last decade.
If you want to throw all of your money away and live in a mud hut to save us all then please feel more than welcome to, but don’t force me to do the same.
John Lauder

Its crazy that we In Britain should made to suffer financial Hardship as well as Industrial and Business ruin in order to go chasing Rainbows. Even if as a nation we cut our Carbon emissions to an Impossible Zero it would make not one single iota of differance to the planet as a whole as the likes of China, India, Russia and America will be belching out thousands of times more Co2 than we ever do. All that will happen is we will over price ousrselves off the world stage and lose completely our competitive edge in Production and Industry. the other countrys will be laughing their socks off as we in Britain commit national suicide in a bid to save the planet alone even though there is no proof positive that global warming is even happening or that even if it was to happen would it be such a bad thing as a colder planet as has been proven kills more people than a somewhat warmer one.
It will take years to Fix the planets Ailments, we can fix these bit by bit in the future, but only if we still have some financial clout to do it with.