Curing The Mischiefs Of Faction

Hoorah for the DECC (sorry, the Department of Energy and Climate Change....Ed Milliband and his lot)! I must admit to being reasonably impressed by the announcements on Wednesday outlining the government plan to move the U.K onto a permanent low carbon footing.
It sets out the targets to achieve and shows how it will "transform the country into a cleaner, greener and more prosperous place to live" and puts it at the heart of our economic plans for "Building Britain's Future".
Over the next 10years it sets out how we will; have more than 1.2 million people in "green jobs", have 7 million homes benefit from whole house makeovers and 1.5 million households supported to produce their own energy.
40% of energy will be delivered from a basket of low carbon sources, from renewables, nuclear and clean coal. We will be importing half the amount of gas we would otherwise and cars will emit 40% less carbon than now.
All this (and lots more) to achieve a 34% reduction in carbon emissions on 1990 levels by 2020.
And it here that I have concerns. As the press release says itself, we have already delivered a 21% reduction ("equivalent to cutting emissions entirely from 4 cities the size of London"), so that leaves us a target of a further 13% reduction over the next 11years. Laudable reductions so far (maybe, maybe not!) but is the remainder enough? Should we have moved the base (1990 levels) to more recent (and more accurate measures) of emission levels? Is it enough to do what needs to be done?
Here are 10 things to worry you on the situation taken from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report update, June 2009;
1. Greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are responsible for most of the increase in global temperature with greater than 90% certainty. Many aspects of climate change explicitly link them to human activity.
2. Human induced climate change is already affecting multiple systems, both physical and biological.
3. Changes in polar temperatures are attributed "conclusively" to human activity. A detectable human influence on sea ice melt extends back to the early 1990s, even before (and including) "the recent and rapid increase in melting".
4. Global precipitation trends across all areas of the World are larger than model predictions and may already be impacting ecosystems, agriculture and human health.
5. Satellites show an increase in total atmospheric moisture content over the oceans since 1998 attributable to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses.
6. New research finds a significant chance (84%) that human activities are responsible for most of the observed increase in sea surface temperature which contributes to more intense hurricanes.
Ocean acidification (by absorption of CO2 forming carbonic acid) is occurring threatening the World's coral reefs, shellfish and marine ecosystems leading to a direct threat to food security, biodiversity, tourism and coastal protection.
7. A better understanding of the behaviour of large ice sheets and of rapid melting has raised projections of 21 century global sea level rise (see my posting 7th July).
8. Surface melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is accelerating... satellite observations indicate that 2007 was a record year for Greenland surface melt - 60% more melt than the previous record of 1998. A similar story for the Antarctic ice shelves and for the Arctic sea ice.
9. Permafrost is thawing more rapidly than previously thought. The permafrost (the Arctic land mass) contains significantly more CO2 than currently exists in the Earth's atmosphere. Release of both CO2 and CH4 (methane) occurs with the thawing of these areas. Methane emissions from Siberian thaw lakes "may be more than 5 times higher than previous estimates" and expansion of thaw lakes in response to Arctic warming has led to a 58% increase in methane emissions (remember, methane is 23 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2).
10. The impacts of climate change may persist more than 1000 years, even after human-induced emissions of CO2 have stopped completely.

Well, I didn't mean to scare you, but it does beg the question that despite the fact that the U.K. is at the "forefront of a low carbon economic revolution" with the excellent Department of Energy and Climate Change plan, is it enough, and is it enough, soon enough?

If you'd like to read the full, terrifying report go to; http://www.pewclimate.org/brief/science-developments/June2009

Good news today though..... leading retailers have only just missed their target to reduce the number of plastic carrier bags given to their customers. The scheme aimed for reduction of 50% and has achieved.... 48%. I wonder what their monetary savings have been as a result, what their income from "bags for life" is and what they have done with that money. Still, we mustn't be too mean in our thoughts for the 7 supermarkets' brave attempts to save the World. They have reduced the number by 372 million bags in the last year compared to the number handed out in 2006.

Oh, and the title of today's missive.... comes from U.S president, philosopher and generally regarded master of the bon mot, James Madison in 1788.... "There are two methods of curing the mischief's of faction: the one by removing it's causes, the other by controlling it's effects"