UK likely to miss Paris climate targets by wide margin, analysis shows
Exclusive: Under current policies, Britain could fall short of internationally agreed goal of 68% cut in emissions by 2030
What is Cop28 and why does it matter?
Fiona Harvey in Dubai Tue 5 Dec 2023 16.00 GMT Last modified on Tue 5 Dec 2023 16.57 GMT
The UK government is likely to miss its targets under the Paris climate agreement by a wide margin, analysis shows, dealing a devastating blow to Britain’s standing on the international stage.
Under current policies, the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions are likely to be 59% lower in 2030 than they were in 1990 – but the country’s internationally agreed target is for a 68% reduction by the end of this decade. The gap is likely to leave Britain in breach of these commitments.
The 2030 emissions goal was agreed at Cop26, the UN climate summit hosted by the UK in Glasgow in 2021, and has been reaffirmed at Cop28, taking place in Dubai this week.
Most of them probably think they will have died by the time the effects of climate change are great enough to bother them, or that their money will be enough to insulate themselves from it. There’s already plenty of Silicon Valley types fantasising about luxury doomsday bunkers.
I think there’s a significant amount of hopelessness and futility in the corridors of power also. It is an enormous task to get the entire world to take coordinated and far reaching action on anything, and some don’t think it’s possible.
But they have tend to have children and grandchildren.
Yes, if there’s a cull, they’ll be on the right end of the scythe.
I have a horrible suspicion that they’ve just drunk the Koolaid - if you only hang around with energy executives who are also denying climate change you either buy into the idea that there isn’t a problem or hand-wave it away by saying some boffin will solve the problem.
It may not be.
Carbon capture and storage or geoengineering just look to be fig leaves that allow Big Carbon to keep rumbling on (why a lot of the argument at COP 28 was over “abatement”). Which feels very short-termist, if they redirected a fraction of the profits (or the money they spend lobbying against green legislation) into building things like solar energy farms across North Africa and the southern states in the US, they could create a future of near limitless profit for themselves. Unfortunately, while the dirty energy companies are fighting any change to their status quo, making any progress will be impossible.