AIBU to think that the Tories are utterly wicked to drop net zero?

[Upsizer]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/19/rishi-sunak-planning-drop-net-zero-policies-pre-election-challenge-labour

I think this is genuinely wicked but I guess it was inevitable with the easiness of drumming up a culture war over environmental issues to win votes. Environment is the new Brexit.

Fighting climate change is going to cost all of us thousands of pounds. So we won’t do it - to get votes.

Our children will live on an island suffering extremes of heat and fighting off refugees from uninhabitable parts of the world.

But it will save us some cash I guess.

AIBU to think this is wicked?

Is anybody actually really shocked? It's not great, but it's the reality. Saying (in 2019) that we would be at net zero by 2035, and there would be no more petrol and diesel cars produced by 2030, and no more normal/traditional gas boilers would be made after 2025 was beyond farcical. Did people really think this was going to happen? It was a ludicrously short amount of time.

There was a thread on here about half a year ago, about only electric cars being made from 2030 and how you would only be able to buy electric (new) from then. 7 years away PMSL. That was never gonna happen. As many people on the thread said, the infrastructure is not there, the car doesn't do enough miles on a charge, and the battery takes far too long to charge. There are too few charging points too. In addition, the price of electric cars is unaffordable for MOST people.

It was an unrealistic and farcical pipedream, and a fantasy. Also, electric cars are not necessarily that good for the environment! The electric does have to come from somewhere. More and more things being electric isn't going to necessarily be super helpful to the planet. None of this has been thought out with joined up thinking!

As for trying to phase out traditional gas boilers ... The replacement for them (heat pumps) have turned out to be shit for many people who have had them. Like the wanky smart meters the energy companies have been trying to bully us into for the past 5 years! (Many people have found them useless!)

Anyone who believed all this 'net zero' would happen so soon is deluded. I foresee the 5 year delay on 'no more petrol and diesel cars' being extended again too. Be more like 2042-2045 I reckon. Not 2035.

But is it all wicked what they have done? Not really. But they were bloody naïve, and hilariously deluded.

Exactly this

We are a tiny fucking island how arrogant are we to think that we alone are responsible for global warming and we are the only ones who can fix it

It removes the urgency at a time of crisis, like driving the ambulance slower to save a bit of fuel.

Deprioritising net zero diverts funding towards continuing reliance on fossil fuels and perpetuates the extractive economy.

The investments needed to innovate in post-fossil infrastructure will not come if there is no “right time” to invest.

And if it slips 5 years now it’ll be easier to slip another 5 in a couple more years and gradually we’ll miss the boat.

Yeah! Let's continue totally fucking the planet. Someone else can clean up the mess.

Baffling. We’re part of a team which contains everyone on earth. Nobody claims we’re the only ones to fix it, they simply recognise that we have a crucial role to play as part of that team.

Could've completed your sentence with AIBU to think the Tories are wicked? In answer to that, no YANBU.
Tories always have been and forever will be the nastiest, cruellest, most self serving group of people around. Yet somehow people still see them as some kind of worthwhile vote.
Stripped away rights of so many but they still get in power. Turkeys voting for Christmas every time. Grim.

What is the crucial role? Our emissions don’t make a difference. And no one cares what the UK does or says. What is this imaginary crucial role.

It’s time to move on from pretending that the UK matters to the world. It’s embarrassing.

Except we are not. We are one of the top countries who having been cleaning up our mess.

No we aren't. We're just slightly less bad at making a mess than some other countries.

Someone has to lead. Someone has to take responsibility.

This.

I just saw a meme that said Brussels flies 3000 empty planes to keep their take off/landing slots.

I doubt anything we do will make much difference.

We're the 17th biggest emitter of C02 per capita in the world - and we're not even a manufacturing country anymore, so we don't have an excuse, unlike China, India etc. Source:

www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/

As a nation we clearly don't want to accept any responsibility - and by that I mean any change to our convenient lives, as witnessed by the violent outrage to the expansion of ULEZ.

In other news, the UK’s economic growth is on par with with Argentina, according to the OECD. Our debt to GDP ratio is over 100% now. Almost half of all spending in this country is by the government. The state taxing, borrowing and printing money to pay the bills it cannot afford. The number of net contributors dropping and productivity continues to fall off a cliff. The country borrowed upwards of £25b a month last winter pay welfare and people’s energy bills.

And yet somehow, there is this magic belief that ‘we’, the royal ‘we’ need to lead the world on net 0. The self delusion would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic.

Yes we are.
https://ccpi.org/

https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-kingdom

You really should look at the figures and not the frothing.

We cannot lead except by example (which we are doing). We are a much hated has been fallen empire that oppressed more of the planet than anyone else. We are the absolute last country anyone wants to listen to, or be preached at by on any issue whatsoever but most especially an issue like climate change that has moral ‘save humanity’ undertones.

All this self congratulation and cries of 'look at us, we're so good, we don't need to try anymore' in this thread.Hopelessly deluded.

again:

the distribution is a few countries with high emissions, and a VERY long tail of countries with low emissions relative to them.

However: if all countries who emit 5% or less dropped their climate targets, together we would fail to reduce 50% of global emissions. I think a country of the UK’s economic standing and advanced development should be responsible for cutting its emissions proportionally in alignment with the Paris agreement.

So, yeah. Still making a mess. Still using up more of our fair share of resources and emitting more CO2 than the planet can cope with. Doing well in a league table of shit is still shit, overall.

But fuck it, we aren't doing quite so badly as some other places so let's just light up our woodburners and go for it.

UK action makes zero difference. That’s the only net 0 that applies to the UK.

What you have described is an airy, fairy world with rainbows and unicorns. In the real world, it does not work like that. The only players that can drive any change are China and US. No one else. It’s delusional to believe otherwise. It may make you feel better but it’s not real.

We are 17th for total CO2 emissions.

But we are 60th if you look at CO2 emissions per capita. It doesn’t make sense to not account for the fact we are a populous country.

You are so wrong that we don’t want to accept responsibility. We have massively cut our CO2 emissions.

No we really aren’t. We are doing better than most places.

It's still not good enough to avert a global crisis.

This is not hard to grasp.

Literally no one is saying that. It’s to counter the cries of “1% is bullshit” when it is actually true. And the cries of “we are shit” when we really aren’t.

Yes it is. Because we have done our bit.
It’s time for the 59 countries that emit more CO2 per person than we do to do their bit as well now.

Even if we got to net zero, it would make no difference.

I think you are not grasping facts. You know the things which include numbers. Cold hard facts and numbers.

What is not good enough? Would be good enough for UK to have 0 emissions? What difference would that make to the climate.

It sounds all caring and sharing to make empty statements and platitudes like ‘not good enough’ and something about log burners. But factually speaking, what difference would it make to the climate.

Agreed
So depressed by the same idiocy as we've seen before
Wake up
Sheeples
MSM
You tube research
Narrative
Virtue signalling

Obviously reading the Light as serious source of data

Aargh

Look at Canada 18.72 tonnes of CO2 per capita.
Look at us 5.60 tonnes of CO2 per capita.

Then tell me again we are the problem.