'Greenest Government Ever' Produces A Carbon Plan

The Greenest Government Ever' has finally announced their attempt at a Green policy. About time too.

"This Carbon Plan sets out a vision of a changed Britain, powered by cleaner energy used more efficiently in our homes and businesses, with more secure energy supplies and more stable energy prices, and benefiting from the jobs and growth that a low carbon economy will bring."

Defining nuclear power as low carbon means what sounds good is actually not, nuclear isn't low emission, isn't sustainable; it simply is not green. Some are saying this Carbon Plan is fuelling a solar feed-in tariff "shambles".

"Becoming a low carbon economy will be one of the greatest changes our country has ever known. But it is a change for the better, for our economy, our society, and for the planet. This Carbon Plan shows how, together, we can make it happen."

We shall see.

"The Plan announced today includes a target to deliver zero carbon new homes from 2016 and zero carbon new non domestic buildings from 2019 and a much more flexible approach to reducing emissions - across housing tenure and type."

Unfortunately the government has a dodgy definition of a zero carbon home. You might think that a zero-carbon home is one that returns to the National Grid as much power as it uses over the course of a year. Unless you plan on living somewhere with no heating, electricity or water, that means a zero-carbon home will need to be kitted out with equipment for microgeneration – the production of energy on a small scale. But as that was seen as too ambitions, the government changed the definition of zero! To them a “zero-carbon home” is one that has cut its emissions by as little as 44% compared with the 2006 building regulations! Zero carbon house says a zero carbon home must produce zero net emissions of carbon-dioxide over its lifetime.

Caroline Lucas MP comments here "Carbon Plan" needs to be more than greenwash. “The move to elevate green priorities to the top of the Whitehall agenda may be encouraging, but I would like to have seen a stronger push, with more in the way of new and concrete proposals that are genuinely compatible with meeting the targets and facilitating the much-needed transition towards decarbonisation.”

“Rather than the flimsy ‘memorandum of understanding’ unveiled today, what we need is local carbon budgets, which would set out more clearly the targets that local councils would need to achieve to stay in line with national targets, while also providing them with the necessary support to do so.”

Guardian,
business green.

For the real deal; C.A.T. produced a carbon plan last year, one that cuts carbon emissions to zero. "We are saying 100 percent by 2030," Cat researcher Alex Randall said. "We can't keep burning fossil fuels."