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Re: Kyoto
In October the UK asked for a revision of its National Allocation Plan. According to the pressure group the Climate Action Network, the increase asked for was equivalent to an amount saved when seven other EU countries cut their own draft plans. Beckett is rapidly losing credibility as her department caves into the Department of Trade and Industry: Friends of the Earth has suggested the UK is now on track for a 14-15 per cent cut in emissions by 2010, rather than the 20 per cent that the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs says it wants achieved. And whatever Beckett’s hopes on aviation emissions, the earliest that these could be included in the ETS is 2008. In the meantime, a continuing rise in transport emissions makes a mockery of the UK’s concern over climate change.
There are economic tools (like taxation) that could play a role in tackling climate change. The EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme, however, is not one of them.
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