That is they have no clue how to achieve this. I can't find a source to tell me the last time that CO2 equivalent emissions in the UK we below 20% of the current levels. My guess is some time during the early years of the railways, so some time in the 1840s. At that point the population would have been around a third of the current level. So we now have to achieve a level of CO2 equivalent emission which is maybe less than a third per head than it was in the 1840's.

20% of CO2 equivalent emissions is not that much higher than the food sector in the UK which was estimated at about 14% from memory.

Of course what would really happen is substitution - inductries generating lots of CO2 emissions will naturally gravitate to where the cost penalty is least.

I think what will be found - possibly, or even probably, in a catastrophic mannner that it is simply not possible to sustain a population level in the UK of 60 million or more on the basis of a CO2 equivalent emission level of just 20% of the current amount. It's about time the truth was accepted, and that is that the current worldwide population levels are unsustainable and we are only able to do so by using the limited resources laid down over hundreds of millions of years.

No major political party (or environmentatl body) is telling the truth here - they are living in a dream land. As it happens 2050 is not that far away - I may not be around to see it, but plenty of people readihng this site will be, as might a few politicians. Recent financial events show just how the veneer of control is paper thin and a mirage. This will be another example.

This administration knows full well it won't have to carry out any of these plans so it can happily chuck out pledges until the cows come home - nothing with actually happen. If they were really serious about climate change they'd have told all the yoghurt knitting CND hippies to go swivel on their organic tofu , and would have already started building a load of nuclear power stations since renewables cannot supply all our power needs even if they covered the whole country in windmills.

and an excuse for more 'green taxes' (awww, come on - you know it's good for you, after all Nanny NuLabour says so)

All economies are currently driven by the availability of cheap energy. That source, at the moment, is oil based energy (and isn't likely to substantially change in the next 4 decades). I'm not great at maths, but:

more population + more economic 'growth' = more energy

more energy = more oil

more oil = more CO2

and sorry tree-huggers, fart power is not going to solve our energy demands anytime in the near furture

Honest. I'll bet you anything.

Now that the financial crisis is causing a recession, why aren't Miliband and his merrie greene band of fellow travelers not celebrating? I mean, THEY HAVE ACHIEVED THE ZERO GROWTH ECONOMY that they always wanted. Perhaps they are already plotting the next steps: first, we are all to live in yurts (consequent from the crisis). That will produce the desired reduction in CO2 emissions, as people die of cold, flu, sneezes, badly prepared peas pottage, or more likely the species-jumping flesh-eating MRSA they have found in the Netherlands which would like to migrate here. Do not underestimate these nulabour overlards - they have still months and months to tarfu the UK before we can recycle them.

Having %80 reduction in politicians

"I'm a great believer in new technology riding to the rescue, and do genuinely expect to see some big advances in renewables. However, this goal seems to be way beyond realistic. Am I missing something (other than the cynical thought that politicians are not engineers, and know full well that by 2050 these obligations will be someone else's problem)."

maby the anoucment last mounth of a project to buld a test fusion pland called HiPER or somthign like that it it works 2050 is plenty of time to have a all fusion power ecomany maby with the use of electric cars and all electric heating and the fact we will have no manfucturing indrestry at all we should easley make that cut

For the first time ever a research vessel succeeded in circling the North Pole, as so much ice has melted away that both the Northeast and the Northwest Passages are free of ice:

http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=14910&formato=HTML

But neither you nor Mr. Goddard, who seems strangely absent lately, cared to explain that when it was pointed out to you months ago:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,574815,00.html

" For the first time ever a research vessel succeeded in circling the North Pole, as so much ice has melted away that both the Northeast and the Northwest Passages are free of ice:

http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=14910&formato=HTML

But neither you nor Mr. Goddard, who seems strangely absent lately, cared to explain that when it was pointed out to you months ago:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,574815,00.html"

one swollow dose not a summer make

think about it

This isn't a swallow.

This is removal of CENTURIES of ice from the north pole. If it were in a place that didn't keep the snow, maybe you'd have something.

But here you don't.

it was a coment that a one off event dose not make a trend it it happens year on year then it is a trend a one off event is a freek

And to melt hundred year old ice either requires a space laser (a' la James Bond Villain) or decades of warmer weather.

Which IS cimate change.

Point 1. Nope, not that north west passage. Not without taking YEARS by

a) going into the ice

b) getting stuck in the ice

c) waiting for the ice to drift to where you want to go

d) waiting for the ice to melt again so you can get off

Point 2: Try living on the earth c 3Bn years ago. Your "point" is pointless. We have enough information to say that for our sort of life to exist we have "THIS" sort of climate. That sort of climate should not be getting warmer now and it DEFINITELY shouldn't be getting that much warmer that much quicker. Hell, 4 billion years ago, where was the ice then? And this point was about the ice sheet at the North Pole, was it not, so how the FUCK does it have anything to do with a 4Bn year old earth???

The early earth's atmosphere and climate is irrelevant as to whether 17trillion kilos of CO2 humans are putting out from burning fossil fuels each year is causing a greenhouse effect. CO2 does it. And the change recently in temperature CANNOT be explained by without that CO2 being included at the effect being used by climate models. Climate models that say there is a severe problem with AGW.

Now, if you want to try again, please explain things to do with North Pole ice melting. And if you want to bring up that old horseshit about "it's been open before", please let us know when, with what and how long it took. Then compare it with open water sailing through the newly opened NWP that can be navigated by ordinary shipping as long as they accept the risk if broken lumps of ice hitting them in open water.

M'kay?

OK Mr Eco-Zealot.

You made the allegation, you prove that Gloabl Warming is man-made and exists *in isloation to the natural pattern of global cooling and warming*

Explain to me, within the context of your argument:

- Why Grapes were grown in Newfoundland (where it is now too cold by far for them) in about 1200. Note: This was before significant man-made CO2 emissions

- How we know the extent of the ice sheet in the North 500 years ago, 1000 years ago, 2000 years ago. We don't, and that is a fact.

- How Amundsen navigated the northwast passage famously (not famously enough for you) in 1903 - somewhat before climate change crap

- Why the northeast passage was commercially used from around 1935 until the decline of the Soviet Union

all of which disprove the theory that the earth is unusually warm now - and I could go on.

The point I was trying to make (and may not have done so very well) is that we simply do not have enough conclusive data to prove that current human activity is the actual cause of this, or indeed whether or not we should be alarmed about it being unnatural. Macro weather cycles are immensely long and the earth was much warmer than it is now - while still supporting complex life like mammals and dinosaurs and so on - millions of years ago. It's also been much, much colder.

Now that we are measuring things in minute amounts, we assume that a minute change is not normal and our fault?

Ah, I see. You are losing so you call me a zealot.

Nice angle there.

1) Grapes are now grown further north than they were at the height of the MWP. Newfoundland isn't the world.

2) We know because people were sailing boats that couldn't go through ice. We can see the age of ice in cores so know how old the ice that was there in 1980 (or whenever we drilled the core) and know that the ice sheets have been at least that big (and possibly bigger) for at least that length of time.

3) That is not the same passage as is cleared here and the siberian run required specialist ships for icebreaking. Now they don't.

Fuckwit.

Ice cores huh? To measure the extent of ice melt?

How do you drill ice that's melted? Water cores?

Ice cores only work in areas of permanent ice. The age of the ice in them is estimated using a variety of techniques (none guaranteed to be accurate, but good enough) and the temperature at the time is estimated by the presence of a bunch of indicators. However, this is problematic as it relies on a series of assumptions which cannot yet be proven. The composition of the atmosphere at the time is easier to determine, although even that it problematic because it relies on air being trapped in the ice - and this can take several hundred years to actually happen. So while the common belief is that ice cores can tell you the temperature and the amount of certain gases in the atmosphere, they aren't an exact thing. The stage of science based on assumptions and incomplete data is the hypothectical stage and should really be focusing on developing multiple hypotheses and disproving them to arrive at the truth. My beef with Paleoclimatology is that it has only looked seriously at one hypothesis.

The chief reason that boats never sailed around the top of Russia commercially before 1935 is that Russia (and subsequently the USSR) closed it to international shipping because it effected such a lovely way for ships to get from the Pacific to Russia - including warships. Specialist ships weren't required most summers.

The fact that there was a MWP (which you yourself brought up) shows that this type of warming has happened before without human CO2 emissions. Nefoundland is a good example of this as it patently cannot support grapes today.

Lastly, if you need to resort to insults try something better as *fuckwit* only demeans you, not me. I'm happier to stick to science.

As long as "lying" counts as a reasoned and balanced argument, you're right.

I notice you still haven't accepted that you can tell the age of ice. Where's that balance gone? Or is balance code for "agrees with me!"?