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Scottish Government Targets 66% Emissions Cut By 2032 (bbc.com) 69

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: The Scottish government has outlined a new target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 66% by 2032. Climate Change Secretary Roseanna Cunningham set out the government's draft climate change plan for the next 15 years at Holyrood. She also targeted a fully-decarbonized electricity sector and 80% of domestic heat coming from low-carbon sources. Ministers committed last year to cut harmful CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050, with a new interim target of 50% by 2020. The previous interim target of 42% was met in 2014 -- six years early. However, the independent Committee on Climate Change said the decrease was largely down to a warmer than average winter reducing the demand for heating. Ms Cunningham said the new targets demonstrated "a new level of ambition" to build a low-carbon economy and a healthier Scotland. Goals to be achieved by 2032 include: Cutting greenhouse emissions by 66%; A fully-decarbonized electricity sector; 80% of domestic heat to come from low-carbon heat technologies; Proportion of ultra-low emission new cars and vans registered in Scotland annually to hit 40%; 250,000 hectares of degraded peatlands restored; Annual woodland creation target increased to at least 15,000 hectares per year. The 172-page document sets a road map for decarbonizing Scotland. The aim -- although not new -- is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two thirds by 2032. Among the policies are making half of Scotland's buses low-carbon, full-decarbonizing the electricity sector and making 80% of homes heated by low-carbon technologies.
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Scottish Government Targets 66% Emissions Cut By 2032

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  • That show is awesome and this post reminded me of that show in a tangential way.

  • Daily dose (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Thanks for our daily dose of global warming propaganda! I thought this site was about technology..

    • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Don't worry. When everyone except the richest elite who are jet setting, telling you that you're ignorant and need to do what they tell you and you're fundamentally broke paying for carbon taxes. It'll all work out right? Just like it is in Canada. The entire mood around "carbon taxes" is getting interesting here and I wouldn't be surprised to see mass protests in the near future. We've already hit the "people making choices between heating their homes when it's -40C, or keeping a roof over their head.

      • Which part of Canada is going to suffer even if temperatures rise a few degrees?

        I'd think with the exception of a coastal area or two, they'd be trying to figure out how to emit more carbon if they actually thought it would help keep things warmer and create more usable land beyond the southern edge.

        • Re:Daily dose (Score:4, Insightful)

          by willy_me ( 212994 ) on Friday January 20, 2017 @01:42AM (#53701515)

          I am afraid you are more then a little wrong. For example, in British Columbia around half the lodgepole pine have been consumed by beetles. Why? Because it has not gone below 40 degC in the interior for the decade or two. Takes going below 40 degC for a week to kill the buggers. This has decimated the forest industry and put many people out of work. And this is just one example - wait until the glaciers are gone and Calgary is out of water.

          Climate change actually hits northern countries the hardest. While the US might experience an average increase of 1 degC, Canada will experience an average increase of 3. And while an increase in temperature can be pleasant, if the local infrastructure and environment were not designed (or evolved) to handle it then it brings disaster. Some reservoirs go dry while other areas flood. And half the problems will be such that we can not predict them coming - like the pine beetle example.

          • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

            Just like those same areas were under 2km of ice 7k years ago. The reality is in Alberta, most of their water isn't from glaciers, it's from the winter snow pack, and lakes built from said spring melts. The real problem with the forests in Western Canada(especially BC), isn't the cold. It's that large sections that have been cut are suffering from "yearly monoculture" planting. Which leads to less resistance to the damned bugs in the first place. Round that out with decades of thinking that no-burn pol

        • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

          Which part of Canada is going to suffer even if temperatures rise a few degrees?

          None really. But the cost of carbon taxes to keep you warm in the winter? That hits home very quickly. When your electricity prices if you're heating with that go from $0.085kWh to $0.18kWh? This is true in appt. buildings/condos and such in big cites. In many cases you can't change the thermostat if you're renting. In some cases even if you buy in with a condo because the board controls what you can use. When NG prices go up by 50% in a single year? When oil prices spike jump by $0.18/L in two mon

          • by Reziac ( 43301 ) *

            Just spoke to someone on another forum -- Ontario resident who has the misfortune to own a house with electric heat. And in the past year their bills went from high but tolerable, to just under $700/month -- with the heat turned down as far as it can be without all the pipes freezing up, and their kids walking around wrapped in blankets.

            The anti-warming types who raise such a fuss every time we have a hot summer are silent when an unusually cold winter kills a lot of people, whether through direct cold or f

            • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

              Welcome to the joys of green energy and carbon taxes. This is what feel-good policies lead to in the end, and you're starting to see the same happen in Alberta. They elected a NDP government that has an even further left policy then the liberal party does.

              • by Reziac ( 43301 ) *

                Yeah, I was like... Alberta is the only province that wasn't going down the toilet, why on earth did its voters want to change that? You reap what you vote for, folks...

                • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

                  The Alberta PC's(progressive conservatives) had something like 40 years in power. Lot of good leaders, lot of really good stuff done too. The last leader in power? Alison Redford, not so much. Corruption would be far too simple as a way to paint it. Nepotism is too simple as well. If I said that she treated the province like her own personal fiefdom? That would also be too simple. All of those were in play, and the entire thing exploded and the PC's lost power rightfully because of that. I would have

                  • by Reziac ( 43301 ) *

                    I hadn't heard this part, so thanks. Hopefully AB will vote this current mess out before 40 years of prosperity is destroyed beyond recall. I remember when half of Calgary shopped in Great Falls (my home town :) because of high domestic prices and lack of options.

                    Really unfortunate when you have no good choices, but "Hold your nose and try the untried" is usually worse. And this craze for voting in "anyone who is not a white male" is bringing us a lot of Hillary Clintons and damn few Maggie Thatchers.

                    Best o

                    • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

                      Thanks man. Have a good one, it'll probably take a decade to fix the mess that's going on right now. And it looks like we've started seeing a rise of our own populist candidates against the establishment as well.

                    • by Reziac ( 43301 ) *

                      Sooner the better!

        • by hipp5 ( 1635263 )
          A lot of northern communities are being hit hard because they're built on permafrost, which these days isn't too "perma"...
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Mashiki, when you hear claims like these being made, you really need to stop and ask yourself it it's another Pizzagate. You fell for that one and many other bits of fake news hook, line and sinker, and I'm afraid it's happened again.

        Scotland is blessed with some of the best renewable energy sources in the world. For them, exploiting those is much, much cheaper than other forms of energy. Coal is competitive on cost, but obviously since they have social healthcare it quickly loses on externalized costs.

        Thei

        • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

          You fell for that one and many other bits of fake news hook, line and sinker, and I'm afraid it's happened again.

          You mean except the part where I said there's an assload of circumstance evidence that should be looked at? Very falling for it. I still stand behind that too. You know why? One, because having been a crown witness(that's a witness for the state) in court cases(at count 13) before there's a lot of similarities between what I've seen in both. Second because of all those lovely politicians, entertainers, elites and so on that have been either caught or "found out" over it(like all those politicians you'

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            You mean except the part where I said there's an assload of circumstance evidence that should be looked at?

            Yes, specifically the part where it was investigated by multiple people and you rejected their findings because they didn't fit your existing narrative about senior Democrats being paedophiles.

            This is your problem every time. You reject things that contradict what you want to believe. If something doesn't support your desired truth, you just google a bit more or find a reddit board that will give you the correct evidence.

            • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

              Yes, specifically the part where it was investigated by multiple people and you rejected their findings because they didn't fit your existing narrative about senior Democrats being paedophiles.

              You mean the part where it wasn't investigated by multiple people. Even to the point where a NBC investigative reporter asks the same question "why aren't police investigating this" and it's suddenly scrubbed off their website.

              This is your problem every time. You reject things that contradict what you want to believe. If something doesn't support your desired truth, you just google a bit more or find a reddit board that will give you the correct evidence.

              This coming from the person who holds on to the belief that gamergate is a harassment group, refuses to believe that the people he supported were the actual harassers. That nobody can tie a single GG supporter to an actual case of harassment type of stuff that you refuse to believe.

              • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                Mashiki, you were pushing the Pizzagate crap right up until that guy went in there with a gun and found nothing. The record is right here on Slashdot, you can't erase it. And well before that happened, multiple media outlets were saying they had investigated and it was complete bunk.

                It was obvious bullshit to most people from the very start. High ranking, power paedophiles decide that the best way to traffic children is to advertise their illegal activities on the street, in case passing paedophiles who the

                • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

                  Mashiki, you were pushing the Pizzagate crap right up until that guy went in there with a gun and found nothing. The record is right here on Slashdot, you can't erase it. And well before that happened, multiple media outlets were saying they had investigated and it was complete bunk.

                  No, actually I wasn't. If you want to lie feel free, but that proof is right there -- in my post history. I mean it's not like you haven't been pushing the actual lie that gamergate is about harassment for 2 years or anything. Or that you've been discredited so hard that you run away every time over it.

                  And there's the part where you haven't looked at any of those podesta emails. Just a FYI, there wasn't anything "on the street" rather it was all in emails which repeatedly used similarities. And a secon

    • Don't want to be informed of things, curl up in a hole and don't come out.

      I'm non-plussed to learn that clean energy technology is somehow not technology.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I don't know when Slashdot became so luddite... Geeks should be loving this, we get cool new tech, cars with insane performance and zero emissions, get to rebuild the power grid right this time... We should be doing everything we can to help and make sure it gets done right, but instead it's just endless complaining that it can't possible work (even though it's already working) by armchair engineers.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jandersen ( 462034 )

      The existence of technology requires science, unless you're talking about the simple tool use we share with other animals, and - brace yourself for this - climate change is and area of science, it really is. Climate scientists, unlike climate change deniers - follow the facts, even when they don't please them by confirming their hopes. Climate change deniers, on the other hand, reject all data that they don't like, no matter how strong, while accepting even the most tenuous hint that offers them comfort. Wh

  • Labour's Claudia Beamish, who has put forward a members' bill calling for a fracking ban, said it was a "major let-down" that it was not mentioned in the statement. While she broadly welcomed the draft plan, she said: "If the government was serious about tackling climate change it would back my Bill to ban fracking in Scotland."

    You poor fucking Scots have the same type of no win [wordpress.com] system as we do.

    Sincerely,

    The Rest of the World

  • ...is to intubate Scottish sheep to collect their methane emissions.

    Emission cuts are the XXIst century equivalent of self-flagellation in the Middle-Ages to cure the Black Plague. Pointless.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      That's a false dychotomy... to fix [something I don't want fixed] we would have to [do something ridiculous exteme]. Why? why not make small corrections for long term benefits?

      I don't see why being carbon neutral means we have to re-introduce the black plague. Let alone whip ourselves on the back!

      I do see that you're simply equating progress with oil consumption.

    • Emission cuts are the XXIst century equivalent of self-flagellation in the Middle-Ages to cure the Black Plague. Pointless.

      Cheaper, cleaner, renewable energy that we can get locally is self-flagellation? Please, do go on. Explain that to me.

      • Renewable energy isn't cheaper (all the countries which use it have the highest priced energy in the world and prices rose substantially after the buildup), sometimes isn't cleaner either (e.g. biomass burning is considered as a renewable energy source and consists of burning forest residues).

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Liberals are known for making long pointless talks about global warming and produce a huge amount of C02 in the process. A quick back of the napkin calculation shows that by removing the liberals and liberal politicians from Scotland and transplanting them to Mexico we could eliminate 55% of Scotlands current carbon emissions. The remaining 11% could easily be combated through more efficient transportation and energy production that will naturally flourish when the bottum feeders are no longer clogging up

    • Perhaps you would like to discuss long pointless talks about global warming with Trump. In his filing for his Scottish golf course, he explicitly mentions the need to build a sea wall to protect it because, wait for it, current scientific evidence points to a rise in sea levels which would increase erosion.

      You can read Trump's own words right here [cbsnews.com]. Let me point out what Trump said in his petition:

      "If the predictions of an increase in sea level rise as a result of global warming prove correct, however, it

  • by dbIII ( 701233 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @10:59PM (#53701003)
    Scotland's emissions dropped a massive amount a few decades ago back when Thatcher used the one-off North Sea oil windfall to finance a transition from a UK wide manufacturing economy to a Southern England financial services economy.
    Scotland and the UK in general had not recovered yet.
    So there are not a lot of emissions to cut which doesn't make it a very difficult job.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      "Thatcher used the one-off North Sea oil windfall to finance a transition from a UK wide manufacturing economy to a Southern England financial services economy."

      The country is the 11th largest manufacturer in the world, apparently adding 220 billion to the economy:

      http://www.themanufacturer.com/uk-manufacturing-statistics/

      The financial sector contributes 126 billion, admittedly a good chunk of change but still behind manufacturing:

      researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06193/SN06193.pdf

      So the tra

      • by dbIII ( 701233 )

        The country is the 11th largest manufacturer in the world

        Down from number two or three.

        is a myth

        Calling it such is known as "revisionism", the sort of thing Soviet Russia got up to.

  • More SNP Bollocks (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Meanwhile the Govt is in serious debt, the Education system is failing, North Sea Oil is on it's arse and the First Minister is blindly hanging to the concept of Independence #2 [whilst being tied to the EU] despite the EU saying "Non", the UK Government telling them there is snowball-in-hells chance of a 2nd Referendum and Brexit hammering in the final nails.

    Never mind all that - Climate Change Virtue signalling is what we need ! Is BeauHD a shrill for the SNP ?

    How is the 80% of domestic heat from "low car

    • How is the 80% of domestic heat from "low carbon heat technologies ?" Most people I know have Gas Central heating not electric.

      Ah but wait until May's hard Brexit crashes the economy. Sitting in a cave burning renewable wood for heat is definitely low carbon.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by magpie ( 3270 )

      Um...the Scottish government has no debt, it wasn't allowed to get any until the last Scotland bill (even then it is very constrained), the only debt it ,arguably, has is the PFI crap that the labour signed up to. The EU has not said no to an independent Scotland joining (even spain has not said that). What happened to the price of oil (now climbing again) can hardly be blamed on the SNP.

      Oh as for the healthier scotland crap...why are the unionist parties and friends doing all they can to block minimum pric

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by magpie ( 3270 )

          That is not actual government debt and is based on the GERS figures that have one heck of a lot of guess work. As I have said the Scottish Gov isn't allowed to have any debt.

          • GERS (= Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland, http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Sta... [gov.scot]) are the official accounts and signed off by the Scottish Government. The SG has been under the control of the Independence seeking SNP for 10 years. When the oil price was high they were happy to use the GERS figures, but now the price is low, the independence crowd seek to denigrate the figures, although the SG themselves accept the numbers; after all they are responsible for them.
        • That's the gap between the money raised in Scotland, and the money spent in Scotland. The reason the Scottish Government "has no debt" (in the sense of a National Debt) is that Scotland is part of the UK and so debt is taken at the UK level. The Scottish Government's expenditure is decoupled from tax raising, although after the 2014 referendum they gained more tax-raising powers. Predictably they've bottled it and rather than increase taxes or living within their means prefer to complain about austerity w
      • An iScotland would certainly get its share of the UK debt. EU has not said no to Scotland joining after independence, but they have said Scotland can't be in both the UK and the EU. As has the UK, and anyone with an ounce of sense. Minimum pricing for alcohol is blocked by...Court of Justice of the European Union. Was the EU the union to which you referred?
  • A good start to reducing gas emissions by 66% would be for the SNP to stop talking.

  • near the Arctic Circle can significantly reduce its Carbon output then there is no reason why the rest of us can't.

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