NEWS: The Guardian March 4, 2020
The government must abandon its fossil fuel power projects. If not, we’ll sue
George Monbiot writes in The Guardian that “Last week’s Heathrow judgment was a watershed. Now we must target other projects that put profit before life on Earth”
The article continues “No longer should our survival be an afterthought. If we are to withstand the climate crisis, every decision should begin with the question of what the planet can endure. This means that any discussion about new infrastructure should begin with ecological constraints. The figures are stark. A paper published in Nature last year showed that existing energy infrastructure, if it is allowed to run to the end of its natural life, will produce around 660 gigatonnes of CO2. Yet, to stand a reasonable chance of preventing more than 1.5°C of global heating, we can afford to release, in total, no more than 580 gigatonnes.
“Heathrow third runway ruled illegal over climate change
“In other words, far from building new fossil power plants, the survival of a habitable planet means retiring the damaging projects that have already been built. Electricity plants burning coal and gas and oil will not secure our prosperity. They will destroy it.
“But everywhere special interests dominate. Construction projects are driven, above all, by the lobbying of the construction industry, consultancies and financiers. Gigantic and destructive schemes, such as the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway, are invented by lobbyists for the purpose of generating contracts. Political support is drummed up, and the project achieves its own momentum; then, belatedly, a feeble attempt is made to demonstrate that it can somehow become compatible with environmental promises. This is what destroys civilisations: a mismatch between the greed of economic elites and the needs of society.”
George Monbiot continues “While we are challenging the government’s energy policies, another group – the Transport Action Network – is about to challenge its road-building schemes” on the basis that the “national policy statement on road networks is also outdated and incompatible with the UK’s climate commitments. The policy statement, astonishingly, insists that “any increase in carbon emissions is not a reason to refuse development consent”, unless the increase is so great that the road would prevent the government from meeting its national targets. No single road project can be disqualified on these grounds. But the cumulative effect of new road-building ensures that the UK will inevitably bust its carbon targets. While carbon emissions are officially disregarded, minuscule time savings on travel are used to justify massive and damaging projects.
“Transport emissions have been rising for the past five years, partly because of road-building. The government tries to justify its schemes by claiming that cars will use less fossil fuel. But because they are becoming bigger and heavier, new cars sold in the UK now produce more carbon dioxide per kilometre than older models.”
You can read the full article here.
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