Positions taken by governments and businesses

Leafing through the many reports into which countless hours of effort have been invested by businesses and public bodies over the past five years, a pattern emerges. A major report such as an IPCC assessment or the Stern Review sets out a position. Governments and business organisations then rally around that position, interpreting it in a way that includes rhetoric on the urgency of the situation but nonetheless sets out plans for an affordable and orderly transition to a low carbon world. The next big report then comes along and sets out a more advanced position. An ungainly period of adjustment then takes place while the flock catches up with the new consensus.

Currently we’re in one of the adjustment phases. The 2015 peak position has been set out by the IPCC and Blair and governments and businesses are eyeing each other to see if this new consensus is accepted by the flock.

The UK Government, responding to consultation on its climate change bill in October 2007, said that its 60% emissions reduction target for 2050 was “consistent with the view taken by the Stern Review that developed countries will need to make cuts through domestic and international action of 60-80% in greenhouse gases by 2050 consistent with a 450-550 parts per million (ppm) stabilization scenario.” (That 450-550ppm is for all GHGs and equates to 400-490ppm of CO2 alone) [1]  But this statement is out of date already if we accept that 400ppm is the upper, rather than lower tolerable, and limit.  Targeting 400ppm specifically is inconsistent with Stern because he called it unlikely to be achieved.

In its 2007 report, the CBI proposed a series of measures it believed was needed to hit even the 60% 2050 target, with an interim objective of 40% by 2030. Its plans for 2030 included 3000 wind farms, 20 power plants using carbon capture and cars that are 40% more efficient than today’s. If that’s the prescription for the 60% target, what would it be if the world’s sights are set higher and the UK target rises as a consequence?

The Government has now tasked its climate change committee under Lord Turner with investigating whether the target should be raised to 80%. It would be in line with the adjustment pattern if the Committee recommends, and the Government accepts, not only an 80% target but the rest of the 2015, 400ppm, scenario, presenting itself with others at the new rallying point around the end of 2008.

It’s then likely that a scientific or policy report will argue that we need to go further, not simply stabilizing the concentration of CO2 just over its current level, but actually lowering it below 380ppm, by cutting emissions so far that not only does the blanket not thicken further, but starts to thin out.  There will then be a flurry of activity as people consider whether to flock to this new rallying point ahead of Copenhagen.