The price of petrol
"Beep beep beep beep beep BEEEEEEEEP.... the Government has increased its target for a reduction in carbon emissions from 60% to 80% by 2050. The environment minister, Ed Miliband, said the move was in response to increasing evidence that climate change was happening more quickly than was thought a few years ago. In other news, two supermarkets have dropped their petrol prices below 1 pound per litre. Gordon Brown said that he hoped other outlets would follow suit in passing on the reduction in wholesale oil prices."
I don't know how the BBC announcer managed to keep a level voice in reading the nine o clock new tonight. Or is it only me that thinks its bleeding obvious that reducing oil prices is hardly a good way to encourage people to burn 80% less of the stuff?
A few months ago the government was even calling on OPEC countries to increase oil production in order to keep rising oil costs down. It's mind-boggling. Can they really not see that there is a 1 to 1 relationship? Every single atom of carbon that gets pumped out the ground as oil or gas becomes a molecule of CO2 that is released to the atmosphere from our engines and power stations. A 10% increase in oil production equals a 10% increase in CO2 emissions. That's it: end of story. Well, at least until carbon capture comes along, but that could be a long time yet.
So what an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions really needs is an 80% reduction in oil production. And an 80% reduction in petrol being pumped into petrol tanks. Yet people aren't going to use use less of the stuff if you make it cheaper. It's obvious, isn't it? Surely? Or have the government realised something that I haven't?