Yet, if it is indeed the case that Brown is to set a 60 percent target for 43 years hence â not far short of half a century â he has lost complete touch with reality. Not only is he making plans for a period, the conditions of which he can have no knowledge, he is making commitments for future governments which he has no constitutional right to make.Almost as idiotic as people predicting what the weather will be like in fifty yearsâ time when it is not possible to predict for the next fifty hours.
Putting it in historic perspective, however, this is equivalent to a prime minister in 1907 â then Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, seen here inspecting Crimean War veterans in Manchester â making plans for 1950. By then, of course, we had had two world wars and the political map had changed beyond recognition.
IT HAS been billed as the summit that could help save the planet, but the latest United Nations climate change conference on the paradise island of Bali has itself become a major contributor to global warming.Admittedly Chad does not emit all that much a year but the point remains valid.
Calculations suggest flying the 15,000 politicians, civil servants, green campaigners and television crews into Indonesia will generate the equivalent of 100,000 tonnes of extra CO2. That is similar to the entire annual emissions of the African state of Chad.
Attendees are expected to include celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, the actor, as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California, and Al Gore, the former US vice-president.At least the hotels and resorts of Bali will make a good deal of money in what must be the off-season, so thatâs to the good. There is some hope that this will revive Bali as a tourist destination after the two terrorist bombs in 2002 and 2005, though that is not a major aim of the conference.Many are merely âobserversâ who have no formal role to play in the talks, which largely involve government ministers and officials. Among these observers are 20 MEPs and 18 assistants whose itinerary includes a daytrip to the idyllic fishing and surfing village of Serangan.
The UN has also recently received thousands of new registrations from groups campaigning for the environment or fighting against poverty. WWF, one of the largest, is sending more than 32 staff to the meeting.The EU is doing just fine:
Thousands more are coming from businesses, especially the burgeoning carbon trading sector, which already carries out global transactions worth £12 billion a year and has an acute interest in the outcome of Bali.
One of the biggest delegations is being assembled by the European Union, which is expected to send Stavros Dimas, the environment commissioner, and 90 officials.Well, thatâs not so bad, I thought. Hizonner the Mayor of LondON took an entourage of 100 people to India and nothing much has been said about the carbon emissions that resulted from that little jaunt to and around India as well as back to LondON. Usually, the Mayor cannot stop talking about all that hot air.
In addition, all 27 EU countries are expected to send separate national delegations. Germany has one of the biggest, with around 70, and France follows close behind with 50. Even Latvia will be represented by four delegates, while Malta, an island populated by 400,000, will have two.Britain is trying to keep its delegation down.
Three ministers â Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, Phil Woolas, junior environment minister, and Gareth Thomas, junior minister for international development â will attend accompanied by about 40 civil servants.That is still rather a lot of people, given that the ministers at least will be in extremely luxurious hotel apartments (paid for by whom one wonders), justified by the fact that they will need to hold private meetings. Have these people not heard of the internet?
If you want to tackle an unprecedented global challenge like climate change then people have to meet and talk. Bali remains the worldâs best hope to minimise the effect of global warming.Then again, he would say that, wouldn't he.
Chris Goodall, a carbon emissions expert who did the calculations for The Sunday Times, estimated that each person flying to Bali would, on average, generate the equivalent of 6.48 tonnes of CO2. If 15,000 people attend, this adds up to over 97,000 tonnes of CO2. To this must be added about 13,000 tonnes of CO2 from the conference venue and hotels â a total of 110,000 tonnes.Well, never mind. Theyâll make up the difference by banning people from taking two holidays a year on those evil cheap airlines.