EU Low Carbon Roadmap Is “Non-Binding” – Frustrates Wannabe Eco-Dictators

Source. www.freefoto.com

The proposed 270 billion per year plan (€10.8 trillion total by 2050) for Europe to reach its target of becoming a low-carbon economy and society presented by Climate Commissar Connie Hedegaard yesterday has received a cool reception.

While the industry says not no fast – it’s too expensive, the environmentalists are complaining that it is not fast enough and does not allow them to take over Europe as its dictators.

The plan presented yesterday in Brussels is widely known as the EU Commission Low Carbon Roadmap, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95 percent of 1990 levels by 2050. Interim targets have also been set: 25% by 2020, and 40% by 2030.

Europe’s emissions have gone down by 16% over the past two decades and the EU economy has grown by 40%. But much of that CO2 reduction came from shutting down the old communist mismanaged industry of former Warsaw Pact countries after the Berlin Wall fell in late 1989.

Ridiculous argument

The EU climate commissars are encouraging Europe to take more action, some even resorting to ludicrous logic, like Connie Hedegaard – quoted by Environment News Service:

We need to start the transition towards a competitive low carbon economy now. The longer we wait, the higher the cost will be. As oil prices keep rising, Europe is paying more every year for its energy bill and becoming more vulnerable to price shocks. So starting the transition now will pay off.”

She’s saying: let’s switch over to expensive alternatives right away and really pay through the nose right now. That way we won’t have to worry about paying for higher-priced oil in the future! 

And this low carbon-living isn’t going to make Europe more competitive, either. To be competitive energy has to be affordable and its supply steady. It’s not for nothing many countries are cutting back subsidies to wind and solar.

Non-binding

The EU Commission’s Low Carbon Roadmap outlines a vast number of criteria for meeting the the targets: smart meters, renovation of buildings, thermal insulation, energy efficient machines, expansion of solar and wind energy, etc. But environmental groups were disappointed by the plan as a whole. Klimaretter blogsite writes (emphasis added):

The proposals of the Commissar were “unacceptable” said WWF energy expert Regine Günther: ‘The Commission views an emissions reduction of 25% as possible’, but did not make it binding, says Günther. “Without any clear ambitious target requirements, the European economy will lose the competitive leadership in markets for energy efficiency and renewable energy in the near future.’ “

What’s bad news for the eco-dictators is of course good news for EU citizens. Sorry, but many of us don’t think that spending €10.8 trillion for a few tenths of a degree Celsius is worth it. Besides, whatever CO2 Europe saves in the decades ahead will be wiped out by China and India CO2 growth in just a few months.

Meanwhile others are biting off their fingers. Environment News Service:

Friends of the Earth’s Head of Climate Change Mike Childs said, ‘If these plans go ahead, European governments are effectively abandoning any realistic hope of keeping global temperatures rises below two degrees, locking us into catastrophic climate change.’ ”

‘If the EU is serious about tackling climate change it must slash its emissions by 40 percent by 2020, without buying carbon credits from abroad,’ said Childs.”

Words of an eco-dictator.

13 responses to “EU Low Carbon Roadmap Is “Non-Binding” – Frustrates Wannabe Eco-Dictators”

  1. Bernd Felsche

    Well spotted on how those 16% and 40% were achieved.

    I recall sitting at the top of Langenstein at the foot of the Harz mountians in 1987, looking across the plain… well trying. Because visibility was limited to a couple of km by the brown muck hanging in the air. Walking through the Harz itself (as far as permitted), one would cross small creeks which reeked of petrochemicals and/or fumed acrid vapours.

    Returning to the regional town, the streets were always filled with frowning faces – below the banners celebrating the forthcoming 40th anniversary of the republic. Lots of young people sitting around, “killing time” just about every day.

    Workers in overalls queued at certain shops for that rare treat, while a glance into the factories gave insight into the underemployment of the employed. Meanwhile, a lone Soviet soldier sweeps the leaves from along the path in front of an official building; and when he getsto the end, he starts to sweep the same pile back towards the other end.

    Head and eyes down again. Mustn’t stare. Must blend into the herd. You can’t tell who’s an informer. Shh… Not a word to anyone.

    As it was in the past, so will it be in the future. If we fail to read the signs of history.

  2. RCS

    I cannot understand what it is about climate change that sends our politicians insane.

    Hopefully, as more draconian plans are made to cut carbon emissions, green leaning politicians will begin to understand the tsunami of economic and social destruction that they have started. Some of them may think again and start to take a genuine interest in climate beyond soundbites.

    However, in the UK, there is one out of 640 MPs who has a science degree and I have come the conclusion that the rest simply do not understand what they are dealing with.

    I suppose the fact that Earth hasn’t warmed for 15 years, the US and the oceans are cooling will simply be taken as proof that they are doing a really good job!

  3. R. de Haan

    “Words of an eco-dictator”.

    Words of a eco-nut.

    1. Edward

      I could add a few myself……….. .

      But hey!…. lets keep it fairly clean.

  4. R. de Haan

    In the mean time the green sabotage is working:

    EU Energy Commissioner Warns Of De-Industrialization

    http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/oettinger-beklagt-deindustrialisierung/3888668.html

    I rest my case.

  5. Edward

    I could go on all night on this topic.

    Do we have a hint though, just a hint of back-tracking on targets and all that BS?

    Is there a hint of COLD harsh reality sweeping even into the EU?

    Why should industry in Europe be saddled with these ridiculous taxes [carbon emission taxes], whilst the world savagely undercuts our goods and services, making unemployment for all of Europe?

    Is the message, that the US, China, Brazil, India are not playing ball, beginning to sink in????????????

    No binding targets? That doesn’t sound like the EU to me…….this is the start of the long retreat maybe………………….. back to sanity, ask Boney [like Hedegaard another jumped up megalomaniac], he came up against cold harsh reality too in the form of a Russian winter – January and February and was resoundingly thrashed.

    OMG.

    1. DirkH

      Yes, the beginning of the long (planned) retreat. Hedegaard is not important. When the Germans say no, nothing goes in Europe.

      1. Edward

        Chillingly correct Dirk.

        1. DirkH

          Sorry for that. It’s nothing i’m proud of. Kyoto was masterminded by German politicians and exactly tuned to fit to Germany’s situation.

          http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/secret-history-climate-alarmism?page=1

  6. R. de Haan

    Edward
    9. März 2011 at 17:39

    Edward, you don’t get it.
    First of all, our EU apparatchiks don’t accept binding agreements because they don’t want the responsibility. Period.

    Secondly, the objective of EU and US policies is to destroy the Free West.

    Just read http://green-agenda.com and connect the bloody dots.

    If your intention is to put the world under control of a totalitarian regime you first have to get rid of the free world.

    They call it the First World revolution and what’s currently happening in N.A and the M.E is part of the scheme.

    This crises has to deprive Europe from it’s oil enabling the EU to enforce a prohibition on oil use by consumers.

    In the mean time they will attempt to bring the N.A. and M.E oil resources under control of the UN.

    Control over resources, oil and food provides them with control over population growth (or reduction).

    Famine is their primary strategy to reduce the world population.

  7. R. de Haan

    Welcome to the new Green Dark Age
    http://dailybayonet.com/?p=7988

  8. R. de Haan

    Don’t you love this:

    EPA GHG regs put biomass plant at risk
    March 9, 2011
    Thanks to EPA’s new greenhouse gas permitting authority, a proposed Wisconsin biomass plant has come under fire from green activists. According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel report:

    It doesn’t make sense to issue a permit for the project because it would add emissions of carbon dioxide at a rate much higher than a natural gas-fueled power plant, said Mary Booth, an ecologist who is researching biomass projects for a national coalition called the Partnership for Policy Integrity.

    “We looked at the permit numbers, and the emissions of greenhouse gases are six times higher from biomass than in the natural gas boiler,” she said. “It’s right there in the numbers, and yet they say we’re not going to consider any further use of natural gas as a way to make this facility cleaner because this is a biomass project.”

    EPA has apparently not yet granted the biomass industry an exemption from its rules, and the enviros are making hay in the meantime.

    Greens fighting green policies. Hilarious.

  9. R. de Haan

    We already saw Greens in favor of Nuclear power and now they are obviously in favor of natural gas.

    In the mean time they are against crop based bio fuels, palm oil, wind mills, bio mass plants and centralized solar plants.

    If this process continues the Greens become their own worst enemy.
    Problem solved.

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