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The Terrible Truth is That Even Sunak's Mild Net Zero Relaxation May Be Unlawful

Allister Heath in the Telegraph is full of praise for Sunak's watering down of the U.K.'s Net Zero measures. But the terrible truth is, he says, that even these mild changes may be unlawful – the PM needs to change the law.

The central problem is Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband's subversive 2008 Climate Change Act. The original idea – a legally binding, 60% net reduction in emissions compared with 1990 levels by 2050 – was hardened to 80% during the process. In 2019, during the dying days of her calamitous premiership, Theresa May increased the legally binding reduction to 100% by 2050.

Supporters of the Act knew what they were doing: its legal-technocratic infrastructure was deliberately structured to prevent the sort of rearguard, common sense action now being advocated by Sunak. There isn't just a 2050 deadline, but also five-year rolling carbon reduction targets that must be met by law. These "carbon budgets" must be agreed 12 years' ahead of time, and accompanied by credible policies – although, scandalously, as the PM noted yesterday, they are not properly debated by MPs.

The Act created an extremely powerful quango, the Climate Change Committee, to "advise" the Government on where to set the budgets, and how exactly various sectors are squeezed to ensure they are met. The politicians have some room for manoeuvre, but not much.

The terrible truth is that Sunak is probably overstepping the mark. He has pressed the nuclear button: he has rejected the CCC's advice and potentially torn up the fifth (2028-32) and sixth carbon budgets (2033-37). The latter was enshrined into law by Johnson in 2021. Sunak's courage in defying this madness is remarkable, but he must now act strategically if he is to avoid being annihilated.

Green activists, corporate subsidy junkies and the rest are crying blue murder. They will claim – perhaps rightly, given the inane legislation – that the Government's policies are unlawful. They will rush to their lawyers. The Left is already planning a raft of judicial reviews to prevent any airport expansion: the CCC has called for a temporary halt, and, longer-term, will surely demand that any increase in airport capacity (such as at Heathrow) be met by a reduction somewhere else (for example, by shutting Manchester Airport). This battle is a harbinger of things to come: the courts may well rule that the delay to phasing out the combustion engine is unlawful.

If Sunak wants to win, he will need to change the law – carbon budgets may need amending, requiring a Parliamentary vote. He may even need to amend the Climate Change Act itself. He will need to whip his MPs: he should learn from the Brexit battles of 2019, when Remainers who defied Johnson were thrown out of the party. If that fails, he will need to include a pledge to legislate for his relaxed deadlines in his 2024 manifesto.

Worth reading in full. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/20/net-zero-rishi-sunak-blob-heresy/)

I'll put this link in as well as that the link to the Telegraph as that has a paywall with only limited free looks

https://dailysceptic.org/2023/09/21/the-terrible-truth-is-that-even-sunaks-mild-net-zero-relaxation-may-be-unlawful/

Sounds like we have been stitched up like kippers unless this can be unravelled

On the other hand, no parliament can bind its successors.

The penny finally drops, even with politicians.
Unfortunately, they try to worm their way out of it, but do even that in half-measures.

ICE cars not to be banned now until 2035.  I predict they'll still be on sale well after 2040.
And they're still hoping that windmills will produce all the electricity they'll need!  🤣

just shows how divorced from reality they are

By 2035 the MP's will no doubt be promoting cars fuelled by fairy dust.

Or perhaps we should all use wind powered vehicles, ideally with chargeable batteries which could be plugged into the national grid to top up essential domestic power sources (for things like the ovens/hobs that heat up free/subsidised meals for our MPs) 

https://www.renewableenergyhub.co.uk/blog/wind-powered-cars-a-possibility-or-crackpot-philosophy

They are relying on the fact that "by then it will be someone else's problem".

yesterday was extremely windy - today is flat calm. Wind powered cars? Oh dear, another dopey idea!

I'm sure many of us remember playing with planes that required winding up an elastic band via a propeller, which then powered the (tragically short) flight upon releasing it.

Perhaps we could store energy through the use of huge elastic bands connected to the turbines somehow (so they would be able to have trickle surplus provided to the cause), which could then be released when the wind isn't blowing to turn turbines.  

I see this as a similar possibility to keep wind driven cars going. 😬

Surely it would be more efficient to use a mainspring?

Don't recall where I heard the numbers (probably GB News as it was heard not read) and I haven't researched it but it seems completely feasible to me...

Currently our electricity grid provides 20% of all our power usage.
Virtually all the rest comes from fossil fuels directly predominantly as oil gas and coal.

Now if gas and oil are replaced for heating and oil for cars that grid has to deliver a total of 5 times the current (sorry about the pun) capacity.

That means more pylons, more substations and upgrades to all the current supply cabling to houses.
Is any of that actually happening yet?
Can you believe it will or indeed can in the timescale that has been set?
What will it cost?
Now the easy one - who would pay?

But they are not really fossil fuels, but the waste product of the planet. Known oil reserves are massive, and where there is oil there is also gas. We even have massive reserves of coal. What we are short of is sensible politicians, we only get the stupid greedy sort.

exactly - but not just greedy - also bloody stupid

Quote from: Ashy on September 22, 2023, 11:14:07 AMBut they are not really fossil fuels, but the waste product of the planet. Known oil reserves are massive, and where there is oil there is also gas. We even have massive reserves of coal. What we are short of is sensible politicians, we only get the stupid greedy sort.

Fortunately, when they have been hopefully relying on windmills and solar panels for several more years, and they find that their wonderful "nett zero" is not achieving anything, they may finally remember that we still have plenty of stores of gas, oil and coal under our feetl

It isn't going to go away, so at least they can't sell it all abroad to pay for more windmills.

As I see it if they really must reduce the CO2 then the only reliable way to do that is with nuclear. 

Build over capacity and sell it to the silly sods relying on wind when that don't blow ©France.

Its easy withdraw! Also who will prosecute us and for why? Its more about losing face (as the wet greens view and trumpet their interpretation) on the 'international stage. America isn 't committed in this way for instance. The harlot May rushed this spill of bile though in the last week of her pathetic government, without a vote in parliament.

Actually its about 'skewness' (wiggle room) and it would be almost impossible to prove that a five year moratorium of asymmetry within a 30 year overall term is prejudice. As long as one delivers at the terms end thats all that matters. You can't make a judgement about the end result less than 10% into the contract. Anyway, we are leagues in front of others in achievement to the tenets of this foul agreement, so quid pro quo should the others be tried for their tawdry approach and lack of progress in comparison.

Damn 'Goldsmith' and his shoddy cabal, for posing as real conservatives when they're truly cowardly Lib-dem/Greens who are afraid to risk running under their true colours. Traitors all!

totally agree!

UK CO₂ is only 1% of the human total and our "reduction" is a sham anyway. We have shut down the heavy industrial producers but still need the products so we import them from where they are still made. Rather than reduce our real CO₂ output we have increased it by the additional produced shipping the stuff to us. 

I really don't know if it is human CO₂ causing climate change but I do know that what we have done has had no real effect on the amount produced.

It is all complete hogwash.

Quote from: klondike on September 22, 2023, 05:46:58 PMUK CO₂ is only 1% of the human total and our "reduction" is a sham anyway. We have shut down the heavy industrial producers but still need the products so we import them from where they are still made. Rather than reduce our real CO₂ output we have increased it by the additional produced shipping the stuff to us.

I really don't know if it is human CO₂ causing climate change but I do know that what we have done has had no real effect on the amount produced.

It is all complete hogwash.

Yes, and we all know that vegetation requires CO2 for its survival.
Those from Planet Vega will be up in arms.

Has anyone noticed that asthma and respiratory diseases have increased since the Clean Air Act of 1963?

Also if the whole of human produced carbon dioxide was removed from the atmosphere, there would be no change in the CO2 concentration in the air because the atmosphere would shrink very slightly.

Quote from: klondike on September 22, 2023, 05:46:58 PMUK CO₂ is only 1% of the human total and our "reduction" is a sham anyway. We have shut down the heavy industrial producers but still need the products so we import them from where they are still made. Rather than reduce our real CO₂ output we have increased it by the additional produced shipping the stuff to us.

I really don't know if it is human CO₂ causing climate change but I do know that what we have done has had no real effect on the amount produced.

It is all complete hogwash.

Plus, as has been said by Ashy, Chinese & Indian pollution doesn't hover over China & India, just as the UK's hugely expensive clean air won't hover over the UK.

Quote from: Diasi on September 23, 2023, 03:11:35 PMPlus, as has been said by Ashy, Chinese & Indian pollution doesn't hover over China & India, just as the UK's hugely expensive clean air won't hover over the UK.

Of course.  It is just a shame that all the "nett zero" supporters are unable to understand that.
The proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere is pretty constant generally, except for where more CO2 is being consumed by vegetation and where CO2 is being created, but it all evens out pretty quickly even in a small area.

The only difference we would notice is such things as engine exhausts, but even then you might smell them close to the exhaust pipe, but step back a few paces (or wait for the car to pass by for a couple of seconds) and the smell is all gone.
And even then, such exhausts are not purely CO2.  You can't smell CO2!

Your body produces CO₂.

kill everyone -planet saved!  :grin:  :grin:  :grin:

Still be doomed with all the farting beasts of the field. 
Or maybe the same natural variation which is leading to the current modest warming.

Quote from: klondike on September 24, 2023, 09:15:02 AMStill be doomed with all the farting beasts of the field.
Or maybe the same natural variation which is leading to the current modest warming.

There is CO2 in farts, but not a lot.  Nitrogen, hydrogen, CO2, oxygen and methane.  Then there's often a little hydrogen sulphide to spice things up a bit.

My favourite fuel is butter beans.  I eat them a lot.

It's the methane that makes farts a problem with global warming - that is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO₂.

From google...
Methane is the second most abundant anthropogenic GHG after carbon dioxide (CO2), accounting for about 20 percent of global emissions. Methane is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. 22 May 2023

The H₂S is the one that really causes problems as you mention but only locally.

Can't we point those wind turbines upwards to try and blow the methane out of the atmosphere?

Quote from: dextrous63 on September 24, 2023, 12:22:30 PMCan't we point those wind turbines upwards to try and blow the methane out of the atmosphere?

Better still, couldn't we use it?
Couldn't it be used to power cars, perhaps with a small adaptation of internal combustion engines?

Thinking about that, didn't they use large gas bags on the roofs of vehicles in the war?

We could create all of our own fuel too, if we all eat lots of beans.

Quote from: JBR on September 24, 2023, 12:27:29 PMBetter still, couldn't we use it?
Couldn't it be used to power cars, perhaps with a small adaptation of internal combustion engines?

Thinking about that, didn't they use large gas bags on the roofs of vehicles in the war?

We could create all of our own fuel too, if we all eat lots of beans.

Ah, the one as shown on Dad's Army.

Anyway, perhaps we could make smaller turbines which run off a battery, which could be used to help cool an ICE😉

I've seen small plant working off propane, and we have LPG for cars of course. I think these days we would put it in a cylinder. But this green nonsense isn't being wished on us because we can't get oil, it's a political cult flapping about.

Had to re-read the word "cult" 😳

Quote from: JBR on September 24, 2023, 12:27:29 PMBetter still, couldn't we use it?
Couldn't it be used to power cars, perhaps with a small adaptation of internal combustion engines?

Thinking about that, didn't they use large gas bags on the roofs of vehicles in the war?

We could create all of our own fuel too, if we all eat lots of beans.

Human wind power was used on the Good Ship Venus.

Quote from: Diasi on September 24, 2023, 03:10:40 PMHuman wind power was used on the Good Ship Venus.

Ah, Carter the Farter.
Marge says that I could do that.

There was a program on this topic on TV many years ago which suggested the average count was 17 a day iirc. Google has this on that topic..

Humans pass gas between 13 to 21 times a day. Farts can be flammable, if they contain hydrogen and methane. (Warning: Do not try to test under any circumstances.) According to an NBC News report, upon release, farts can travel about 10 feet per second, or approximately 6.8 miles per hour.

The 17 target was surpassed during the period from when it was mentioned to before the end of the hour long program. This was achieved by the poster fortyone on PF who was thereafter christened fartyone by crabby.

Just mentioning this on behalf of a friend.