Climate Change Part 11 (One rule for us)

Gordon Brown continues to hit us with taxes in the name of all things green. He also wants to stop us destroying the planet with our cars and foreign holidays. It's funny how it turns out that the 1930's were in fact the hottest decade on record, even though we didn't all drive and fly then. I'm a climate change sceptic and I certainly do not believe that taxing us out of the sky and off the roads is the best way to tackle the problem, if it does in fact, exist.

Anyway, on to the point of this post: The government (Gordon Brown and supporting artists) assure us that being green is a Labour policy and they believe 100% that man made climate change is a certainty. This is Gordon's justification for making the people pay for their carbon footprints through taxes. However there seems to be a 'one rule for us' policy running through government. Apparently an internal briefing paper for ministers from officials at the recently renamed Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, reports that under current policies, it would be "challenging" for Britain to reach a target of 9% for energy renewables such as wind, solar or hydropower - well short of the EU's 2020 target of 20% and that the UK had "achieved little so far on renewables".

Mike Childs of the environmental group Friends of the Earth said: "It's very clear that what they're trying to say is 'we want to introduce maximum flexibility within the targets', and they float ideas about saying 'can we use our nuclear power as part of that targets? Now, clearly nuclear power isn't a renewable industry, so what they are trying to do is weaken it as far as possible. It is a very damning document and it does give a very interesting insight into the way that government operates."

There are more damning quotes but I think it is enough that Friends of the Earth are telling us that the government are not being exactly honest in their approach to achieving green targets. We are being forced to accept green policy while Brown and Co are dodging and weaving their way towards green targets. Targets which, according to the internal briefing paper, they are going to fall miserably short of hitting.

If the government are going to force green policy on us, they could at least try and make a more convincing effort to hold up their end of the bargain.