Is it too little, too late, or is it a road map that other nations should follow?
In 2008 the British Government set up the Committee on Climate Change, composed of "experts in the fields of climate science, economics, behavioural science and business", to advise governments on "on emissions targets and report to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for climate change." The CCC has just released a huge report laying out plans for achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050.
Nearly finished a speedread of the Climate Change Committee’s report, on a net zero carbon emissions target for 2050.
The report is even worse than I thought it would be. It’s awful. Complacent techno-reformism.
>The report yields barely a speed bump on the road to extinction.<
— Rupert Read (@GreenRupertRead) May 2, 2019
Activists are already claiming that it is too little and way too late, and they are probably right. But it is a road map that is tougher than I have seen published anywhere else, looking at may different factors.
However, there are some big holes that the activists are pointing out, mainly related to driving and flying, noting that it's "all so convenient to pretend that nobody will have to change their lives very much."
So in buildings, they call for greater efficiency, and replacing gas boilers with heat pumps, but never mention urban planning or sprawl of single family housing, or building on a Vienna model of really efficient low-rise multiple family housing, or going seriously efficient with a standard like Passive House. They call for moving away from fluorinated gases while never mentioning that with the exception of a few CO2 heat pumps, they all are full of fluorinated gases.
See: Passivhaus is Climate Action
kids in Copenhagen cargo bike/ Lloyd Alter/CC BY 2.0
On road transport, they focus on electric cars, which they say is easy to do because "average trip distances are currently 8-12 miles" but never mention e-bikes which could also do that distance easily for the majority of people. They never mention a Copenhagen model which was developed in the 70s as an alternative to burning gasoline. They do mention that "shifting to more sustainable modes of transport (walking and cycling) could be a cost-effective alternative to private car ownership depending on location" but never mention building infrastructure to support that, to make it viable for almost every location.
See: Bikes and e-bikes are climate action
They also:
1. Prioritise the preservation of a car-centric transport system, mispricing the social costs/benefits of electric cars through woefully incomplete costings;
2. Don't even consider alternative ways to move people and goods more broadly, let alone try to cost them
