Alice Hooker-Stroud argues for a Zero Carbon Britain.
It’s a hard fact to swallow but we are currently failing to tackle climate change: we are not taking action far enough or fast enough; and the more we have delayed, the harder it has become.
|
This week on Click on Wales This week on Click on Wales we’ll be asking what type of energy policy we want for Wales.
This comes ahead of the IWA Energy Summit 2014 which will be held this Wednesday at Butetown Community Centre, Loudon Square, Cardiff.
Limited tickets are still available. For more information or to book, please visit our Eventbrite pag
|
Climate scientists are suggesting that for industrialised countries like the UK (and of course, that means Wales too), at least a 10% per annum decrease in greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to keep warming below 2 degrees C. Contrast this with current policy in Wales to reduce 3% per year, and we can see how far off ‘tackling’ climate change we truly are. Currently – even with our emissions reduction pledges (legally binding or not) – we are on course for roughly a 4 degrees C hotter-than-normal future by the end of the century (and more afterwards). This change in temperature brings with it more heatwaves, floods and droughts; it brings melting ice, rising sea levels, and acidifying oceans.
In this future, our lives will be very different. The hotter it gets, the higher the risk of death, ill-health, and injury; damage, destruction and eradication of ecosystems and biodiversity (on land and in the seas); and breakdown of food and infrastructural systems (water, electricity, health, transport etc). In short: the future for which we are currently heading is vastly different from today. ‘Business as usual’ is not only ‘not an option’ (to keep climate change below 2 degrees), but ‘not a reality’ – ‘business’ (and our communities, families, and societies) will not be able to operate in this future, in the same way they do today – if, in some cases, at all. Change will happen, whether we want it or not.
However, there is another future open to us. It too, requires that we change much of what we are used to. However, we have the ability to choose these changes, rather than having change imposed upon us. At the Centre for Alternative Technology in mid-Wales, we have been looking at what kinds of changes are required to meet the demands of climate science. If we were really to take this problem seriously, what would we in the UK have to do and what would the end result – this ‘other’ future – look like?
Zero Carbon Britain: Rethinking the Future (the latest report from the Zero Carbon Britain project) sets out a possible future for the UK. One in which we run on net zero greenhouse gas emissions – removing our contribution to the climate problem entirely. We could get started on building this future immediately because we already have all the technology to make it work.
We can get off fossil fuels completely and run the UK on 100% clean, renewable energy. We can reduce our energy demand – insulate our houses, walk and cycle more, provide and use more public transport, electrify our transport, and fly much less. We can change our agricultural systems to be carbon neutral, by eating and using our land differently.
All this is possible – we are blessed with one of the best wind resources in the world, and there are plenty of other renewable energy sources in the UK. There is enough land here to provide a healthy diet for us all, grow biomass to make our energy system reliable, and have more space for important wildlife habitats like forests and peatlands. And there are additional benefits if we do it right – more jobs, warmer houses, better health and higher wellbeing.
These are big changes, and the transition to an emissions-free UK is not easy. But climate change is a big problem, and there are no small solutions. With climate change – quite rightly – the primary concern for future generations listed in the National Conversation, ‘The Wales We Want’, we need to face up to the choices we have and the changes we need to make, and set in motion plans fit for achieving them.
Zero Carbon Britain is not a ‘blueprint’ to be followed to the letter – it is a proof of concept: that an alternative future is available, and that it works. We can choose this future. We hope the work will inspire more ambitious action to tackle climate change in the knowledge that it is possible. The UK has emitted more greenhouse gases per person historically than all but one other country in the world. We have the ability, the opportunity, and the responsibility to eliminate our emissions. With 73% of respondents to a survey on public perceptions on climate change in Wales saying that Wales should set an example to the outside world when it comes to addressing climate change, then we should be making these kinds of choices, now.
Lets think small in the first place
Lets start with a zero carbon Wales To do that we need independence with a capital I
Moving on your article refers to the UK and Britain To do that we need to have a stable definition of the two words bearing in mind we have lived and are living in a definition of for Wales read England
All is not achievable unless our ideas are translated into global action and Wales is in a good position to lead the World but only if we do it from a Welsh perspective
The cost of ‘de-carbonising’ the UK’s electricity supply is estimated by both the EU Commission and the International Energy Agency to be about £1.3 TRILLION. That’s TRILLION not billion or million…
Perhaps you would care to ask the fairies at the bottom of your garden where this money is going to come from and why they are so desperate to remove harmless essential plant food from the atmosphere?
I’ve asked John Walker this before and he won’t answer. 1. What is your own assessment of the probability that human carbon emissions are raising global temperatures to a possibly dangerous extent? We get that you think it unlikely but what does that mean, 10% probability, 30% probability? Surely even you can’t be quite certain that the balance of scientific opinion is wrong? Second question: what would the probability have to be for you to think it worth taking precautionary action? Surely you would not ignore a 50 per cent risk to the planet? How about a 10 per cent risk? My view: I think the scientists are 80 per cent likely to be right and the consequences are so serious we should respond to any risk over 10 per cent anyway. Behind your pseudo-scientific posturing I wonder what the probabilities are that mean your position can possibly make sense.
@Ross Tredwyn.
I’ve asked John Walker this before and he won’t answer. 1. What is your own assessment of the probability that human carbon emissions are raising global temperatures to a possibly dangerous extent?
I have answered this before (I think) but if I haven’t my answer is NIL, zero, zilch, nada, etc.
As I have said before, the so-called greenhouse effect of CO2 is logarithmic and the additional effect above 200ppm approximates to zero. Even then CO2 is only a bit-part player. The only greenhouse effect that matters is from water vapour. Your inability to understand basic science is not uncommon – it seems to have become an epidemic! But when so many people come out of school semi-literate and functionally innumerate what can we expect?
JRW The weakness of your position is that you seem to regard the majority of scientists, including Nobel prize winners as unable “to understand basic science” or “semi-literate and functionally innumerate”. They may just have noticed that the atmosphere of Venus, which is largely carbon dioxide has produced a surface temperature that would vaporize lead. What happened to your 200 ppm limit there? However, since you are the only person who understands these things I suppose it is no wonder you haven’t got a Nobel prize. They just haven’t caught up with you yet. The other possibility is that you are deluded..