Wednesday 9 December 2009

Climate Change - Brown to sell Corus Carbon Permits.

From Reuters:

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain on Wednesday said it would auction off rather than cancel millions of carbon permits to come from a closed steel plant, equal to one percent of UK greenhouse gas emissions.

The government said cancelling the permits, allocated to a plant owned by Europe's second largest steelmaker Corus in northeast England, would be a "lengthy process" so it would instead sell the rights to emit nearly 7 million tonnes of greenhouse gases back to industry.

The Teesside plant is scheduled to be mothballed in late January and if the facility is to be closed for more than 50 days, Corus, owned by India's Tata Steel, is not entitled to receive the permits, worth around 100 million euros ($147.5 million) per year at current market rates.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will next week push rich and poor nations to accept deep emissions cuts under a new climate change deal at United Nations talks in Copenhagen.

I'm a bit confused here. Surely if Gordon Brown really wants to reduce the amount of CO2 pumped into our atmosphere - then he should cancel these permits - no matter how lengthy the process.

He could, in a stroke, cut our emissions by 7m tonnes a year. Of course that would mean he wouldn't get his hands on that 100 million Euros.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I suppose the great unwashed, stinking in their pit, will be selling their surplus carbon credits to those of us who want to work. Life is becoming like one continuous, drug fuelled nightmare.

William Gruff said...

I wonder what a debt ridden government led by the Grooovey One would do in the same circumstances.

Chris said...

I LOVE the "Climate Change my arse" tag - so much more attention grabbing than the yonks-past-its-sell-by-date "Gate" thing!

debt said...

I enjoyed that. Not too many folk tapdance on stage these days. lol

Man in a Shed said...

Nice find. I think Corus Teeside shows up the whole hypocrisy of the govt nicely.