Remember how greeny two-shoes EU thought it could implement the EU Directive requiring all airlines that start or land in Europe to participate in its costly emissions trading scheme beginning in 2012 – all to rescue the planet?
EU airline emissions directive meets reality. (Photo credit: NASA)
In the system greenhouse gas emissions would have a price and the airlines would have to buy emissions permits. And the EU meant business. Any airline that refused to play along with its let’s-pretend-to-rescue-the-planet-game would be restricted from flying to and from Europe. Yes, it was time to tell the rest of the world how to behave and to bow to its demands.
Well, reality has a way of catching up with obscene and absurd green ideas. In this case it isn’t taking long.
Today the German CO2 Handel.de reports here that the EU has decided to back off. Hey, we were just kidding. The EU will now accept pledges from countries to cut emisions at home. Yeah, we know what that’s worth. It needs to be pointed out that airlines in EU countries can forget about getting out of buying certificates…it appears the concessions are for non-EU airlines only.
Gee, I wonder why the tune is changing. According to CO2 Handel:
There was massive resistance from outside. More than 20 countries, among them Russia, India, Brazil, China and USA, threatened to revoke landing and air space rights for European airlines if the EU stuck to its plan. Behind the scenes, China warned that it could cancel billions of euros in orders for French and German Airbus planes.”
Well hey, maybe climate is not really that serious after all. A promise to cut somewhere else will do.
Humiliated, EU Climate Commissar Connie Hedegaard sent out her spokesman to deliver the message on Thursday in Brussels:
We’re flexible.”
Economics and reality have a way of focussing the mind, don’t they?
A significaant step forward for everyone except the greens. I wonder what their plan B is in this case.
Pretty amazing! I checked the websites of Spiegel, Stern, Focus, FTD, FAZ, Welt – and not one mentions this news ;-))
They will wait for their next editor’s conference to decide how to frame this news.
But it’s legit, here’s Saarländischer Rundfunk (a regional public broadcaster) with a short note :
http://www.sr-online.de/nachrichten/29/1320364.html
“should those countries take similar measures to reduce the Co2 emissions of air traffic, an excemption can be made.”
IOW, the EU bends over backwards to avoid conflict. Not much high-handedness left in Brussels.
China will so kick their asses in Durban! 🙂
Nothing on the BBC either. Perhaps it is not what it seems. I read the following in the linked report “If these countries take similar measures to reduce the CO2 emissions in air transport, it can provide for them an exemption from emissions trading.” (Google translated)
So it seems conditional at the moment.
Yeah, it appears more conditional and I changed the text a bit. But the EU isn’t going to block any country’s airlines. The economy and finances are a complete mess. Blocking airlines would be suicide. Now they’re accepting from countries empty promises to reduce CO2 at home.
China concession: “Instead of tripling our CO2 emissions, we promise to increase them by only 160%. – Oh great! That’ll do – you can now buy lots of our planes and fly them to and from the EU.
What a joke.
In Europe, an increase of 160% instead of 200% means a 20% reduction. If China had predicted a 320% increase in projected emissions, then they could claim a 50% reduction.
That’s how EU politics works. It has nothing to do with arithmetic or the real world.
Nevermind. Soon the airlines will be able to pay for worthless emission certificates with worthless Euros. It’s just a question of which becomes worthless first.
I think the process of backpedaling is deliberately done this way. It is better to have 2 or 3 low key decisions that don’t get any headlines then 1 headline that is an embarasment to the cause. The show must go on!
The link posted by Dirk H includes the following … “So far, the EU executive had always stressed that the rules applicable from January 2012 included non-European airlines in order to avoid competitive disadvantages for European airlines.”
Therefore, the only way European airlines can stay competitive is if the others pay the same tax, but in their own country. How likely is that?
Don’t tell me somebody at last[!!!] gave Connie headbanger [and by extension the EU Berlaymont ho’s…………err commissars] a boot up her jacksy at long last.
What a fine day it turned out to be.
“Durban: Between Hope And Desperation”
A li’l bit of alarmism by the German private news company n-tv in the run up to Durban; cites Muller as evidence that even “climate skeptics” agree now that the Earth has warmed (well, duh); warning, contains pictures of Edenhofer and Rahmstorf. article states that, unfortunately, the US population has been deluded by the propaganda of fossil fuel interests. So it’s quite a comprehensive smear piece.
http://www.n-tv.de/politik/Zwischen-Hoffnung-und-Verzweiflung-article4740676.html?google_editors_picks=true
I’m sad to say that our private media is at least as bad as our public media.
Obviously they haven’t looked at the temperature statistics over the last 10+ years. Germany is making itself to desert island on the climate issue. They’ve long since institutionalized climate change ideology. History shows Germany is a Meister when it comes to marching in lockstep and institutionalizing whacked out ideologies, and stomping on critical thinking as the ntv does. Here we go again. Once It isn’t going to stop until the entire continent collapses and the bunkers in Potsdam and NASA get emptied out.
T-online, Germany’s biggest internet provide, has its own Green portal:
http://www.feelgreen.de/
where they push rabid anti-industrialism (sorry, can’t describe it any other way). Of course, they have pretty idiotic ideas about how to get into the promised land of eternal sustainability.
The alternative to the light bulb – consumes no electricity but provides convenient lighting!
http://www.feelgreen.de/alternative-gluehbirne-ein-liter-licht/id_51274054/index
You simply screw a PET bottle in the ceiling of your hut, and it will give convenient lighting AS LONG AS THE SUN IS SHINING.
I’m so embarassed, I’m their customer… just sent them an e-mail explaining that I have difficulties with them pushing ideology paid for by my money…
It sounds like Robinson Crusoe romanticism. It’s a boys-dream with outrageous proportions these days.
You don’t know how much you hit the nail on the head with “romanticism”…
“[Romanticism] gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution. In part, it was a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism
But the PET bottle requires industry and petrochemicals to make!
That seems to be the whole point: my guess is that some practical jokers got into a contest to see who can sell the most idiotic story to the gullible boors. That kind of thing was often been cited to explain the nature of the British yellow press, like the “Sun”. It seems that it has caught on. Stay tuned for “Alien Pregnant by Elvis”: http://www.amazon.com/Alien-Pregnant-Elvis-Esther-Friesner/dp/0886776104
That describes the CAGW movement from the moment NASA tried to find a new occupation for Hansen back in 1978 or so – a practical joke.