Turning up the heat - Climate bill

Editorial
The Guardian,
Wednesday October 29 2008

A revolution in slow motion, the climate change bill has been two years in the making. In 2006 Friends of the Earth began a campaign, which was picked up first by the Conservatives and soon after by the government, for a law committing Britain to a sharp cut in greenhouse gas emissions. Yesterday evening the bill finished its Commons stages. It was a radical moment, unmatched anywhere else in the world, the drama only slightly diminished by the threadbare debate that preceeded it.
With the law comes a new reality. Parliament has set demanding targets and deserves congratulation for that. But it has barely begun the task of finding a way to meet them. All the laws in the world will not stop carbon levels soaring to dangerous levels if they do not lead to policy action. The long passage of the bill has been something of a placebo, giving the impression of progress without, so far, producing much in reality. The new climate change secretary, Ed Miliband (whose brother David originally gave the bill government backing) has been admirably ambitious, accepting that aviation and shipping emissions should, in some form, be included in overall reduction targets and raising the proposed cut in greenhouse gases by 2050 from 60% to 80%. He now has to show that these impressive goals can be something more than legislative fantasy.
The low-carbon future always seems to begin tomorrow. If the law works as it should, governments will have no option other than to get it under way today. It should be a straitjacket, binding departments into policies they would not otherwise follow: no new third runway at Heathrow, and no new coal power station at Kingsnorth. But the shame of busting five-yearly carbon budgets may turn out to be much smaller than the political pain caused by enforcing emissions reductions. The call from both main parties for lower petrol prices is just a small hint of contradictions to come.
In the meantime, the task of mitigating climate change is getting harder. Yesterday's Living Planet report from WWF International warned that human demands on the planet's resources have doubled in 45 years, and that 75% of people live in countries that demand more resources than they can provide. The new Garnaut report from Australia warns that emissions are running away, increasing by 3% a year to 2030, making a mockery of British targets. Some scientists are close to panic: a recent collection of essays from the Royal Society suggested targets will never be met, and that the world should attempt "geoscale" interventions instead, such as dimming the sun. That sounds like fantasy. The better alternative is to make the climate change law work.