Zero-Carbon by 2050

Britain's Liberal Democrats are the current leaders in the one-upmanship between political parties in the UK for who will most reduce GHG emissions, criticizing Labour's planned 60% cut as too timid. But their plan to bring Britain's net emissions to zero, by 2050, and non-nuclear to boot, was barely noticed. It's almost expected. You can view their plan here

Their plan for post-Kyoto includes allocation of per-capita targets for all countries. Interesting. They plan to use enforcement mechanisms so that economies that do not have or reach their target can not undercut those that do. Also they talk about auctioning emission allowances rather than distributing caps, and taxing fuels as they enter the economy rather than when they are consumed. They also want nothing but zero-carbon cars by 2040, and all new houses to use no fossil fuels for space heating by 2011. They plan to tax road freight and use it to subsidize rail. They want to speed up planning permissions for wind farms but they would like them to be mostly in the sea. Here they walk a tightrope between casting the planning process as the villain without telling local communities taht listening to their concerns is a waste of time. They want microgenerators to receive a return four times greater than the cost of electricity imported from the grid. Oddly enough they complain about how many trees in UK forests go unharvested. Individuals would be given personal carbon caps and trade in allowances and offsets. There is a little paragraph about the fact that the poorest people have the least efficient housing stock and can't afford to upgrade it, but little is said about what, besides making it even more expensive for them, they would do about it.

Tags: Greenhouse Gas Carbon Tax UK Kyoto Protocol Housing

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