The long road to net zero

We will soon hear of the Earth Summit in April to be set up by the USA. It will be followed by the Petersberg Group on climate change in May and the G7 in June, leading inexorably to the big global UN conference, COP 26 in Scotland in November. The aim of each of these meetings is to establish firm pledges from countries on how quickly they will bring down the carbon dioxide and wider greenhouse gas output of their countries. The world establishment now wants shorter term targets and tough realistic pledges on the long road to net zero by the middle of the century.

Some of my readers welcome this, and others are sceptical about various aspects of the climate change movement. I am writing this accepting the twin facts that governments believe there is a serious manmade climate problem created by greenhouse gas production, and intend to do many things to control and reduce the output of these gases. There are  no mainstream political parties  with a reasonable number of MPs taking a different view in Europe and the UK, and it is likely the Republicans after Trump will move closer to the Democrat position. International bodies and civil services are enthusiasts for this theory, and welcome the radical policies it ushers in. We are in for many more bans, rules, controls, and taxes to wean us off fossil fuel based goods and services, and for more subsidies and state sponsored investments to build the new green economy. Costs and charges of various products and supplies will be pushed up to discourage use. As the UK Climate Change Committee proposes, they want change in how we travel, in how we heat and cool our homes and workplaces, how we generate our electricity, how many products are produced in factories and in what we eat. They wish to see a reduction in meat and diary products.

I would be interested to hear your reactions to this, and to know how you will change your conduct if at all in the light of the likely changes to come.