Targets on climate are 'delusional' - energy companies squirm

I was going to do a short blog on a couple of articles that I read whilst flicking through a few back copies of the Economist (may cover those in a future blog) but my attention was grabbed this morning by an article in the business section of this weeks Sunday Telegraph under the headline "Targets on climate are 'delusional'".

The tenor of the article is that the major (fossil fuel) energy companies are suffering big falls in profits as a result of the recession. Consequently, they are getting very concerned about the increasingly stringent targets governments are looking to impose on fossil fuel useage, the impacts these will have on demand and the costs these may add to their business models. The article quotes a senoior executive in the energy industry as saying "If you look at Copenhagen targets they are basically illusory....There's no way to hit those targets and it would be very silly to think we can". There's lots of other quotes from BP's Chief Economist and feedback from last week's Oil and Money conference and a suggestion that they are becoming bolder in their opposition to international efforts to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% over the next four decades.

Now I have questions about how effective Copenhagen will be, but as the ad says, there's no Plan B and we've got to start changing behaviours and developing new technologies to avert rapid climate change.

There a couple of positive elements in the article... a Tory energy Green Paper in the New Year with a strong focus on renewables and Greg Barker, the shadow climate change secretary, saying Britain had to become a centre of excellence for renewables expertise and manufacture, particularly in the offshore sphere.

Have a read (should be on www.telegraph.co.uk/finance)
Kev