Ed Miliband faces cheating accusations over plans to exclude emissions generated in foreign gas-fired power stations from UK totals.
He has pledged to make the grid 95pc gas-free by 2030 – but 15pc of UK power comes from neighbours such as Belgium, the Netherlands and France, which have coal and gas-fired power stations.
Mr Miliband has ruled that all such imported power is be classed as zero-carbon – making it look as green as wind or solar – because the emissions occur outside UK borders.
You’re cheating Eddie, you’re cheating.
The whole thing is cheating. All imports are considered to have zero emissions attached. If I produce a lamb in the UK and it is consumed here, there are carbon emissions attached to that production that add to the UK’s total. If a lamb is imported from NZ and consumed here, no emissions involved, bar its transport from port to supermarket. Same item, same consumption, different treatment. The whole thing is intellectually bankrupt, even within its own parameters
Can you show a link to this Jim? I would like to send it to a mate.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/methodologies/measuringukgreenhousegasemissions
Net Zero targets are entirely territorial. Everything produced outside the UK does not count for net zero purposes. The UK’s consumption based carbon emissions and net zero are entirely different things. If all UK production was stopped tomorrow and replaced by imports (our host would approve, imports make us wealthier apparently) then we would meet net zero, despite consuming exactly as much stuff.
Fucking hell, I didn’t know that – though it doesn’t surprise me I suppose.
I assume the wood exception will disappear soon – can’t have the middle classes keeping warm by their log burners.
Acshully, it depends. Emissions are reported upon two bases – geographical emissions and geographic consumption. The second includes those embedded in our imports. You do have to be careful about who is using which basis, obvs.
Yes, reading on I see that it’s slightly more nuanced. But it’s all bollocks anyway.
Net zero is predicated on territorial emissions. Close a car factory in the UK, import cars instead, one step closer to meeting NZ. It is specifically set up to destroy UK based production and replace it with imports.
You should approve.
Yep, it is a load of old shit and demonstrates the pointlessness of unilateral net zero, even if everything the climate hysterics claim is true.
Nothing that the climate hysterics claim is true, this is now completely undeniable. Non of the predicted events that were made in the 1980s have happened. These predictions were based on the hypothesis that increased CO2 in the atmosphere would cause dangerous warming. They didn’t happen, the hypothesis has been proven false by observations of actual reality.
I can’t believe I’ve been that stupid all these years, debating whether he’s stark raving mad or just an evil, treasonous bastard, when, of course, none of those are mutually exclusive.
I suppose the more interesting question is, is the fact that an imbecile has risen to the heights of Deputy Prime Minister, a crook is in the running to be the next Prime Minister and a very stupid woman is playing the role of Chancellor to the Exchequer, made them think that they are invulnerable, so they can be as silly as they like?
At least until the religious fanatics they think are their allies think the end game has been reached and they are all cast aside into the dung heap…
Cast on the dung heap to be replaced by…
Oooh, lovely people. The muslims must be so impressed.
…
Fuck! I wish I hadn’t seen that.
…
I emphatically don’t want to give the impression that this pleases me, but there’s possibly if you squint really hard the tiniest iota of a sliver of a glimmer of hope in the fact that the stupid cunt is fudging it.
I don’t much care if they make shit up about ‘climate change’, I care when they actually do stuff to ‘stop it’.
This is one of a number of very small recent hints that they can actually see the iceberg and have realised they’re on the ship, too.
“He has pledged to make the grid 95pc gas-free by 2030 “
Let’s hope he’s lying about that as well or it’s going get pretty cold and dark.
Yep it’s going to be cold and dark as the strategy relies on the interconnectors which wont deliver if there is an electricity squeeze on the other side of the channel.
The whole thing is a fudge as only 20% of our energy usage is electricity and we aren’t creating the capacity to meet the expected demand as other things go electric.
Indeed.when it comes to a choice between sending energy to another country and my own country going cold and dark or keeping that electricity every politician becomes an unapologetic Trump: [My country] first.
Don’t worry, they can just turn up the throttle on the windmills if they need more ‘leccy… What do you mean ‘that’s not how it works’?
And there was me thinking the windmills were giant fans that you turn on to create nice cold breeze to combat global warming.
Ditto with the ‘Carbon Dioxide molecules from man burning fossil fuels are different from Carbon Dioxide molecules belched from Mauna Loa’*.
*Where they measure the level of CO2 in the atmosphere for some reason. I mean that’s as dumb as taking temperature measurements next to an airport runway. Oh………
I expect Mauna Loa was chosen because it’s well away from any significant industry but putting it on an island with two active volcanoes seems a bit daft in retrospect. They can’t just move it though. They would need to set up a new measurement station and run the two in parallel for at least 10 years, possibly longer, to get a good enough comparison to be able to generate accurate long observation series. Even then they would be subject to arguments about adjustments, just as we have now with weather stations.
There is no argument…..
“My Model is Right!! Whaddayamean “observable facts”? My Model is correct, so Nature is Wrong!!!”
See also: burning imported wood pellets is carbon neutral.
Having dried them in a kiln powered by coal/gas/oil and shipped them on a boat burning bunker fuel.
It’s less of a sleight of hand than what we do about Drax, where we actually burn the pellets in this country but say that the emissions occur in South America/wherever the pellets are imported from. At least with this the emissions actually happen in a foreign country and we just import the resulting energy.
Adults talking about ‘carbon emissions?’ Cirrusly?
It’s Miliband’s game. He can’t cheat.
Stop playing his game.
if we put a big ballon on car exhausts and when filled sent them to india to be popped, wed have UK zero emission cars.
is that any worse than getting china to burn tons and tons of coal to make windmills?