From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Starmer has just confirmed at COP29 that the UK will formally aim to cut emissions by 81% from 1990 levels by 2035. This means a cut of 65% from current levels.
This is in line with the CCC’s call last month, which I analysed here. As I noted then, the emission savings made so far have been low-hanging fruit, albeit expensive fruit! It will though get progressively harder as time passes.
Many of the non-CO2 GHGs have already been cut substantially, meaning that much bigger cuts will have to be made to CO2. We can build more wind farms, but can’t get away from the fact that power only accounts for about 10% of emissions now, so massive cuts will be needed elsewhere.
And all this is just the start. Within another 15 years, we are supposed to have no emissions at all.
Back in 2020, an organisation called UK FIRES published their honest assessment of how we could get to Net Zero. UK FIRES is a research programme sponsored by the UK Government, tasked with supporting a 20% cut in the UK’s true emissions by 2050 by placing Resource Efficiency at the heart of the UK’s Future Industrial Strategy.
I covered their report “Absolute Zero” at the time here. Since then nothing has really changed – we have no new technologies with which to address the problem, there is a limit to how much we can rely on intermittent wind and solar power, EVs and heat pumps still remain unaffordable and impractical, and people want more of everything, not less.
The stark analysis laid out by UK FIRES is still true.
This was how their report began:
Below is what I wrote back then. Everything I said is still true.
To many people, “saving the planet” means little more than building wind farms, planting trees and using less plastic. However it is gradually beginning to dawn on the public that the impact on their lives will be substantial.
Even then though, things like scrapping gas boilers and moving to electric cars have been something that “won’t happen for decades, so why worry now?”
However a new study, sponsored by the UK Government, has warned that huge changes to our lifestyles will be necessary, and much sooner than we think, if zero emission targets are to be met.
The report by UK FIRES, called Absolute Zero, calls for all UK airports to be shut by 2050, because there are no practical alternatives for zero emission flight. But as part of this timetable, all airports other than Heathrow, Glasgow and Belfast must shut by 2030.
In a stroke, air travel will be effectively banned for most of the country, as Heathrow simply would not have the capacity to handle more than a small proportion of demand. (Heathrow currently carries a quarter of UK passengers).
But that is just one item on a long list of changes to be forced on the British public. The report concludes that we cannot bank on technological innovations coming to our rescue.
If you thought that we could simply rely on renewable energy, forget it. As UK FIRES points out, even with rapid growth of renewables, we will still need to cut our energy use by 40%, even before air travel and shipping are factored in. And all of this without accounting for the projected population increase.
So forget about electric cars being the solution, because we will not have enough electricity to power them. The recommendation from UK FIRES – have 40% less cars on the road. Their suggestion – use the train more, ignoring the sky high prices, the fact that railways offer very limited routes and how you are supposed to travel around when you get to your destination. The idea that we will all willingly give up our cars to travel by rail or bus is utterly naive.
The report also conveniently ignores the high carbon dioxide footprint in building electric cars in the first place.
Heating is another area where we must cut emissions. UK FIRES expect us to buy heat pumps, seemingly oblivious to the fact they will cost each household a good £10k more than our conventional boilers. They also don’t appear to realise that heat pumps are incapable of supplying the heat we need in the middle of winter, or that the power grid simply could not cope with that sort of spike in demand even if they could.
Or maybe they do! Their guidance includes using heating for less time, in fewer rooms and wearing warm clothes in winter.
Our diet does not escape either, as we will have to give up eating beef and lamb, not to mention frozen ready meals. While we are expected to rely on arable farming instead, they also want fertiliser use to be drastically reduced.
Meanwhile the construction industry is likely to grind to a halt, as cement is phased out. Unfortunately the actual making of cement releases emissions, regardless of the source of the energy used.
Forget about housebuilding, new hospitals and infrastructure, they want us to concentrate on retrofit and adaptation of existing buildings.
Ironically, as even the report admits, we don’t know how to install new renewables or make new energy efficient buildings without cement.
If all of this was not bad enough, they want to ban all imports by 2050, unless they can come via rail, which might be a problem given that we are an island! Of course, we don’t have zero emission freight ships at the moment, and are unlikely to in the foreseeable future.
Quite how we are expected to feed ourselves without importing food is a mystery, unless we return to 1940s style rationing. And you can forget about all of those other things get from abroad now.
What about, for instance, computers and electronics? We will quickly become an international backwater, without access to the latest technology. It would be like the country returning to 1990s style Nokia phones, VHS and floppy discs!
Some may be substituted by UK made goods, but it is hard to see how industrial capacity could be built back up with the restrictions planned on construction, energy use and industrial emissions.
But it is not only the emissions from shipping which concerns the authors. They also say we must be responsible for all emissions from the production of imported goods.
So how, you might ask, are we supposed to live in this glorious, emission free future?
UK FIRES says we must not worry! We can apparently carry on doing the things we enjoy most, totally emission free. Things like sports, social life, eating, hobbies, games,computing, reading, TV, radio, volunteering and sleeping! According to the report, “we can all do more of these without any impact on emissions.”
Indeed, with the economy and industry destroyed, most of us will have much more time on our hands for these pursuits! (Climate scientists and bureaucrats excluded, naturally).
Nowhere in this dismal little report is there any acknowledgement of the fact that the UK only generates 1% of global emissions. The report starts by stating:
We have to cut our greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050: that’s what climate scientists tell us, it’s what social protesters are asking for and it’s now the law in the UK.
Wrecking the economy is not something we should do, just because a few eco-loon protestors are asking for it. And laws can, of course, be changed.
We must however thank the authors of this report for bringing home the very real and damaging effect that the mad rush to decarbonise will have on peoples’ lives.
And, as they have rightly stated, these changes will have to start being put into practice very soon, certainly during this decade.
For too long, the impact and cost of the Climate Change Act has been deliberately hidden from the public. Partly this has been the result of a political conspiracy between all of the major political parties and establishment in general. It has also been aided and abetted by all of the media, with a handful of notable exceptions.
But their dirty little secret cannot be covered up for much longer.
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