UK becomes first G20 country to halve its peak carbon emissions

[smegal]

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/uk- ... emissions/

A pretty major milestone has been achieved: Britain has become the first major country to halve its carbon emissions. The rapid pace of UK environmental progress means that our output is now below 319 million tonnes – half the 652 million tonnes at our 1970 peak. This is in spite of Britain now having a far larger population and economy than 50 years ago.

Had things gone the other way – if our carbon emissions had doubled, for example – this would be front page news. But I’m not sure you can expect to read about this good news anywhere other than The Spectator. There are no campaign groups tracking it, no politicians likely to trumpet it. The info is tracked by the Global Carbon Project and is one of many metrics collected in the energy section of The Spectator data hub. Here it is, showing (obviously) a drop during the lockdowns, but by 2022 showing a drop driven by efficiencies that takes our emissions lower in a normal year than they were when the economy was being shut down.

[Oliver90owner]

It’s not quite as good as it could be? This, presumably, only includes emissions for electricity generation? Or is it better than that?

[nowty]

Paywall removed version,
https://archive.ph/IHtJs

[nowty]

It’s not quite as good as it could be? This, presumably, only includes emissions for electricity generation? Or is it better than that?

Looks like all stuff, I looked on Our World in Numbers, per capita we have gone from 10 down to 5 tonnes. But back then we did used to make more stuff and export rather than import from countries whose emissions have/are rising.
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co ... Per+capita

[AE-NMidlands]

I am deeply suspicious of these claims as I'm sure a lot of it is greenwashing. The baseline date is usually before "we" arbitrarily and abruptly shut down what was left of our coal industry and had the "dash for gas,", coincidentally cutting our carbon consumption. And as said above, exported most of our production.

Given how the green initiatives like house insulation etc, or planning requirements encouraging low-energy houses have been undermined or abandoned, I can't see us being anywhere near the top of any league table. The more it is trumpeted, the more I suspect it is to distract us from an underlying big failure...

[smegal]

It’s not quite as good as it could be? This, presumably, only includes emissions for electricity generation? Or is it better than that?

Looks like all stuff, I looked on Our World in Numbers, per capita we have gone from 10 down to 5 tonnes. But back then we did used to make more stuff and export rather than import from countries whose emissions have/are rising.
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co ... Per+capita

This graph covers that. still pretty good!

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7ofzh/10/

[Adokforme]

Paywall removed version,
https://archive.ph/IHtJs

Thanks Nowty, it's allowed me to read it through rather than just a sentence or two.
I was also attracted to the piece "The true cost of Britains Wind farms" by Rupert Darwall not so much Green washing as Green bashing. Don't think I shall be taking out a subscription any time soon.

[dan_b]

My general rule of thumb is that any article, video or paper that begins “the truth about…” will be anything but and is to be avoided at all costs!