Hard climate targets with firm dates
Climate change has taken the political decision-makers’ agenda by storm after the Stern Report on the economics of climate change and Al Gore’s high-visibility An Inconvenient Truth film and campaign. Last week (8-9 March), EU heads of state and government commited themselves to reducing European CO2 emissions by 20% in 2020 and to go even further if the US and other economic powers are willing to follow suit.
In the wake of the EU’s ‘Green’ Spring Summit, the UK government has announced plans for binding five-year climate-change budgets, with the objective of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions 60% by 2050.