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Behind the polite smiles and fraudulent oratories, the Minister of Energy and Clean Growth, along with her Welsh and Scottish counterparts, dispense with the Climate Change Committee and adopt a Trumpian vision of science.
The government's climate minister, Claire Perry, wrote in October to the chair of the Climate Change Committee to ask her advice on the implications for the UK of the recent IPCC report of 1.5 ° C. A cursory reading of the letter, even though it is three years behind schedule, suggests that the government's reluctance to take climate change seriously could dissipate. Unfortunately, a few moments of reflection dispel any romantic notion of this type.
The minister opened her letter[1] with a fallacious statement that does not bode well. The UK appears to have decoupled its emissions (down more than "40%") from economic growth (up about 66%). Absurdity. Selective accounting and offshoring are the main badets of this fairytale performance. Include aviation and marine emissions and those badociated with our imports and exports, as well as the UK plc carbon footprint. has hardly changed since 1990. This certainly gives a very different aspect of the climate challenge, but no government that this government wants to meet.
In drafting the letter, Claire Perry and the deconcentrated signatories surgically exploded the actual substance of any examination. The CCC has only the right to comment on the implications of Paris for the post-2032 era – when most of the previous councilors will compose memoirs or fertilizer daisies. The wrong sentence notes how "The carbon budgets already defined in the legislation (covering the period 2018-2032) are outside the scope of this request."
The minister then decided to toughen her preference for short-term party politics over robust badysis and honest debate when, in bold, she orders the "independent" CCC to inform about "long term" objectives, and later in the letter, what needs to be done "from here 2050". It does not recognize anywhere the recent IPCC call for a drastic reduction of emissions by 2030 if we want to have a chance to meet our commitment of 1.5 ° C.[2]
But is all this unexpected? And perhaps more importantly, why has this government been given enough time and time to embellish its climate rhetoric while forcing high-carbon fracturing, expanding airports and to the smothering of solar photovoltaic and terrestrial wind?
Once again, I turn to my university community – where are our voices! It is an existential threat to so many people and species, but we generally remain silent in the face of political and commercial interests.
In 1967, as part of the academic effort to reduce the worst excesses of the war in Vietnam, Bertrand Russell founded the International War Crimes Tribunal. Half a century later, and in the face of the threats posed by anthropogenic climate change, is it time for academics to use their research to better express themselves than to appease the status quo?
If so, could the current government not rely on the Climate Change Committee to launch a call for arms?
[1]https://badets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/748489/CCC_commission_for_Paris_Advice_-_Scot__UK.pdf[2]http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_spm_final.pdf
Photo Credit Teaser: By Jonathan Billinger, CC BY-SA 2.0
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