By Paul Homewood
Booker “celebrates” the 10th anniversary of the Climate Change Act!
There could be no better example of how those in the grip of groupthink tend to float ever further off into make-believe than a recent article by Claire Perry, our new Minister of State for Energy. She was celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Climate Change Act, the one which committed Britain, uniquely in the world, to an 80 per cent cut in our CO2 emissions by 2050 (once described by Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former joint chief of staff as a “monstrous act of self-harm”).
Perry boasted that this “ground-breaking Act has been absolutely instrumental in advancing climate action globally over the past decade”, and is now inspiring other nations “to follow in our footsteps”. She went on to say that “trillions of pounds of private sector capital… will be needed to be deployed if we are to meet our binding targets”.
Has Perry ever looked at the figures to see how far the rest of the world has, in fact, been following in our footsteps? It is true that in the past decade the UK, according to the latest BP Statistical Review of World Energy, has cut its emissions by 28 per cent, mainly by closing down the coal-fired power stations that until 2015 still supplied 30 per cent of our electricity, so we now contribute barely one per cent to the global total.
But China, the world’s largest emitter, contributing 27 per cent of the total, has in the same period increased its emissions by 24 per cent, and plans by 2030 to have doubled them. India, the third largest emitter, has increased them by 54 per cent and plans to have tripled them. So our energy minister thinks we should continue to set an example to the world by spending “trillions” on meeting a target that could only be achieved by closing down virtually all our economy, while the rest of the world takes not the blindest notice.
As a measure of her financial acumen, we learn from Wikipedia that Perry once told BBC listeners that the “national deficit” and our “national debt” are the same thing. What makes this truly terrifying is not just that Perry is now running our energy policy, but that the rest of our MPs are so equally lost in the same make-believe that not one will point out she is away with the fairies.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
April 9, 2018 at 04:45AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 