UK Budget 2014 - Environment Taxes slashed or frozen

[RaenorShine]

from the BBC's Summary of the budget http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26626280

All long-haul flights to carry lower rate of air duty currently charged on flights to US

Fuel duty rise planned for September will not happen

£7bn package to cut energy bills, including £18 per ton cap on carbon price support, predicted to save medium-sized manufacturers £50,000 and families £15 a year

£140m extra for flood defence repairs and maintenance

How are we supposed to meet our current mediocre targets for carbon while cutting taxes on pollution etc?

An extra GBP140m to repair the damage already encountered isn't going to stop the dam from bursting in the next severe weather event when you are still cutting capital spending on new defences!

[Jim Hunt]

I've said it numerous times, and I'll say it again:

http://econnexus.org/can-global-warming-be-limited-to-two-degrees/

To summarise briefly, business and politics as usual are predicted to produce a global temperature rise of 4 degrees Celsius by 2100. If global emissions of carbon dioxide and equivalent greenhouse gases were to peak in 2016 and then reduce at 3 per cent per annum thereafter the global temperature rise by 2100 could be reduced to 2 degrees Celsius. As I said in my own executive summary above, the available evidence strongly suggests there's not a snowball in hell's chance of that happening.

[GeoffBeacon]

I wrote a piece for brusselsblog.co.uk that may be too complicated to bother reading - I will try to do better one day - but this may be a reasonable statement

[A theoretical government official] believes that the UK can do little about climate change so we need secure energy supply and he wants this to be as cheap as possible. I have heard it put like this “It’s too late to stop climate change. We need lots of nuclear power stations and a big navy.”

http://www.brusselsblog.co.uk/the-committee-on-climate-change-letters-and-response/

[TerryM]

Geoff


The emphasis on a big navy coupled with US "defense" spending are indications that TPTB are not looking forward to a democratic world order but rather one led by super warlords equipped with the latest technology that the peasantry can provide them with.


That our future super warlords will bear the title Prime Minister or President of some far off land will provide little solace to those who are the recipients of their wrath.


The British Empire in it's heyday attempted to provide the benefits of British Jurisprudence and even healthcare to the conquered masses. The American Empire found it expedient to forgo such niceties but did deign to attempt food production/distribution. The coming Commercial/Governmental Alliances won't be so constrained and will deem it wasteful to do anything other than the extraction of whatever commodity is required from behind technical walls that none can penetrate. Those outside the compounds may die rapidly or slowly, but always without any voice in the boardroom/war room where their fate had been decided.


Terry

[ccgwebmaster]

The emphasis on a big navy coupled with US "defense" spending are indications that TPTB are not looking forward to a democratic world order but rather one led by super warlords equipped with the latest technology that the peasantry can provide them with.

The general movement towards mass surveillance and police state apparatus under the pretext of fighting terrorism also gives one some insight into how things will go. Unfortunately the one region I can think of where I quite like the way things seems to be run (for the main part) happens to appear to have multiple resource vulnerabilities (mainland Europe is the region - energy and phosphate are the resources).

Even there, it's more about lesser evils than greater goods.