last
updated 10th March 05
by 4ecotips.com
Otherwise government's climate
strategy will continue to fail
The UK government must set a strict
annual budget for carbon dioxide emissions
- with year on year cuts - or risk
missing its targets for tacking climate
change, Friends of the Earth said
today. The call is part of the environmental
campaign group's submission to the
government's review of its Climate
Change Programme, which has now come
to a conclusion.
In its submission Friends of the
Earth warns that unless the fight
against global warming is managed
on annual rolling basis, in a similar
way to the management of the economy,
the government's climate strategy
will continue to fail.
Last year the government said that
its current climate strategy would
fail to deliver the government's manifesto
commitment to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions by 20 per cent by 2010 from
1990. It also admitted that it was
only on course to achieve a 14 per
cent reduction by 2010, and that carbon
dioxide levels were currently still
the same as they were when Labour
came to power in 1997.
FOE's climate campaigner, Bryony
Worthington, said: “The government's
current approach to climate change
has been to introduce an incomplete
and inconsistent policy package and
then sit back, cross its fingers and
hope. It is little wonder that the
climate policy programme has failed
to deliver any cuts in carbon dioxide.
The government must get serious about
tackling climate change, set annual
budgets for carbon dioxide, and commit
itself to meeting them.
“With tougher policies the
UK could be a world leader on tackling
climate change. The Climate Change
Programme review is a key opportunity
to transform the government's record
on this issue, and to set out a blueprint
for the rest of the world to follow.”
Friends of the Earth has made eight
policy recommendations to put the
government's climate strategy back
on course and give Tony Blair's international
leadership on climate change credibility.
You can read these and FOE’s
full response at http://www.foe.co.uk
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