Tories raise climate stakes

[highplainsdem]

Source: Observer/Guardian

The Tories are to challenge Labour on a key plank of their green policy by adopting a far more ambitious target for cutting harmful greenhouse gases.

Experts asked by David Cameron to look at climate change have concluded that they should set a target of reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, a substantial advance on Labour's commitment to 60 per cent.

Many scientists believe the 80 per cent figure must be achieved in developed countries if the average temperature around the world is to rise by no more than 2C over the next 40 years. Any rise greater than that represents what scientists believe to be the 'tipping point', when climate change would start to have a devastating impact, with floods, hurricanes and the loss of eco-systems.

Labour has argued that an 80 per cent target is not realistic and could do real damage to the economy. However, emissions of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, from power stations, vehicles and homes, rose last year, with the total higher by 6.4 million tonnes than the 2005 figure of 560 million tonnes. Britain's emissions are now at the highest level since Labour came to power a decade ago, nearly 3 per cent above 1997.

Read more: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,2052541,00.html

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I'd prefer if Labour had set this goal, but someone has to set it...and at least it should get more attention for this issue.

[kestrel91316]

1. Aren't the Tories the British version of Republicans??

I thought Labour was the progressives.........

[highplainsdem]

2. Yes, and Labour needs to match or top this goal.

This is equivalent to the GOP trying to steal the global warming issue from the Democrats. I was stunned by the story.

And even the 80% cut is too little, too late, probably, especially by the target date. But anything that raises public awareness helps. This is so much better than public skepticism by any political party.

[nolabels]

3. Too bad this kind of thing wasn't happening in the US

Wonder if it would be an amazing spectacle or kind of a hoot seeing an Orin Hatch debate a Edward Kennedy about light bulb efficiencies, insulation R factors and mpg figures :shrug:

[LeftishBrit]

4. Yes, sort of, but with some differences:

(1) Tories are not dominated by a 'religious right' to the extent that Republicans are. The party right-wingers emphasize (1) tax-cutting and reduction of (even they couldn't get away with proposing an end to) the welfare state; (2) toughness on crime, with the more extreme supporting a return to the death penalty; (3) anti-immigration; (4) opposition to membership of the Europaean Union. The more liberal members of the party tend to be more like moderate Democrats than Republicans in an American context. Cameron, the current leader, is himself apparently on the liberal wing, though I suspect that if the party gets elected, he'll either move to the right, or be demolished by his own party.

(2) Labour range all the way from people far too left-wing to feature in mainstream American politics at all, to ... well, to Tony Blair.

Blair and Cameron are often very hard to tell apart; if anything, Cameron may be slightly more left-wing on some issues. Not that I plan to vote for him.

[Odin2005]

5. The Left-Right divide is somewhat different in Western Europe compared to here.

Many European conservatives have a "for the good of society" communitarian streak of aristocratic paternalism that US conservatives don't. This is because the US never had the leftover aristocratic/feudalistic influences that Europe does.