Cynical and meaningless

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Cynical and meaningless

There is a certain air of unreality in the pronouncements of this dying Labour government, viz the expected announcement from climate change minister Ed Miliband.

Despite the fact that little Eddie is not going to see the inside of a red box past June of next year, he clambered to his feet in the Commons today to declare that there was a "solution to the challenge" that coal presents in causing "dangerous climate change".

That "solution" is, of course, carbon capture and storage – but not just yet. The little chap recognises that the technology "has never been tried on a commercial scale, and never as the complete process from start to finish on a power station", so he is deferring the day of judgement.

Instead, there are to be four demonstration projects – at an unspecified cost, but estimated at £1 billion each – which are to be funded either from a feed-in tariff or by a fixed price for carbon abated. That means one of little Eddie's final gifts to the British people is yet another hike in electricity prices, on top of the hike in ROCs to pay for the offshore wind farms.

With that, the government is planning on the basis that CCS will be technically and economically proven by 2020 whence every coal-fired power station built from now would have to commit to retrofitting the technology on the whole plant - 100 percent - within five years of 2020.

The scale of the costs that we could have to bear is indicated by research cited by Eddie, which suggests that "CCS and other carbon abatement technologies could sustain 50,000 jobs by 2030." That is 50,000 useless mouths, taking fertiliser out of flu gasses for no reason other than the paranoia of a bunch of warmists and some extremely dodgy science.

Needless to say, this was not good enough for Tory spokesman Greg Clark. He wants all new coal-fired power stations to be developed with CCS technology and be required to achieve an overall emissions performance standard of no more than 500 kg of carbon dioxide per MWh "from the outset". Furthermore, he wants the construction to be funded out of receipts from the EU emissions trading scheme, money that Gordon has already spent.

It only then took lib-dimmer Martin Horwood to agree that carbon capture was a jolly good idea, and then John Gummer to congratulate the secretary of state. It was trebles all round, as the chaps happily trotted of to their lunches.

The only real dissent came off-stage from the Guardian's George Monbiot, who thought the whole statement was "cynical and meaningless". Just for once, we do hope he is right – not that we need worry about the final outcome. By 2020, we'll all be freezing, and wondering why previous governments poured £4 billion down the drain.

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No shit Sherlock!

We've got it all wrong on fishing strategy, says EU – at least that is the "take" of The Times. It tells us that the EU commission is admitting that Europe's fishing industry is on the brink of suicide and several species are in danger of extinction after 25 years of policy failure.

Officials, we are then told, have admitted five key failings in the EU's Common Fisheries Policy as they prepared to tear up the idea of a centrally dictated strategy. They have launched the search for an alternative, saying that much of the responsibility for fishing must be returned to EU member states.

This would seem to contradict one of my immutable laws of government - that stupid institutions can never admit their own stupidity. However, not is all quite as it seems – there is more than a little spinning going on.

The EU Green Paper is far from as contrite as The Times would suggest. It starts off by claiming:

The EU Common Fisheries Policy has become streamlined and is now considerably cheaper and simpler to manage. Decision-making allows for specific technical decisions to be taken with closer involvement of fishers. Fishing operators are given incentives to behave responsibly but they are also expected to demonstrate that they comply with the basic principles of the CFP. Stakeholders fully participate in decisions and debates on policy implementation. Fisheries control has become far more effective.

The paper then goes on to offer a series of options, ostensibly for the better management of the Common Fisheries Policy, thereby ignoring the central and irredeemable defect of the policy – the very fact that it is a commonpolicy. Furthermore, these are but proposals and there is a long way to go before any of them see the light of day – if at all.

Nevertheless, it is at least something that, after 25 years, the EU is recognising that one of its longest established policies has failed. It has yet to understand, however, the reason for that failure.

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