UK Plans To Drop Flagship $14.7 Billion Climate Pledge (theguardian.com) 99
The government is drawing up plans to drop the UK's flagship $14.7bn climate and nature funding pledge, the Guardian can reveal, with the prime minster accused of betraying populations most vulnerable to global heating. From the report: The disclosure provoked fury from former ministers and representatives of vulnerable countries, who accused Rishi Sunak of making false promises. A leaked briefing note to ministers, given to the Foreign Office and seen by the Guardian, lays out reasons for dropping the UK's contribution to meeting the global $100bn a year commitment to developing countries.
It says: "Our commitment to double our international climate finance to $14.7bn was made in 2019, when we were still at 0.7 [% of GDP spent on international aid] and pre-Covid." It adds that to meet it by the deadline would be a "huge challenge" because of new pressures, including help for Ukraine being included in the aid budget. To meet the $14.7bn target by 2026, government officials have calculated that it would have to spend 83% of the Foreign Office's official development assistance budget on the international climate fund. Civil servants said in the leaked document that this "would squeeze out room for other commitments such as humanitarian and women and girls."
It says: "Our commitment to double our international climate finance to $14.7bn was made in 2019, when we were still at 0.7 [% of GDP spent on international aid] and pre-Covid." It adds that to meet it by the deadline would be a "huge challenge" because of new pressures, including help for Ukraine being included in the aid budget. To meet the $14.7bn target by 2026, government officials have calculated that it would have to spend 83% of the Foreign Office's official development assistance budget on the international climate fund. Civil servants said in the leaked document that this "would squeeze out room for other commitments such as humanitarian and women and girls."
No kidding. (Score:3)
This is hardly a surprise.
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Neither will the outcome of the next election ;-)
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UK: Land of poop rivers. (Score:5, Informative)
My sister moved to the UK with her English wife pre-covid, became stuck there for a year, and has been absolutely shocked at how often the local river smells like sewage. The locals mostly think it is normal. With the heat during the summer it is all she talks about when we are on the phone.
She'll be moving back here once her wife completes her degree. At least the Clean Water Act is enforced in most of the United States, for now.
Re:UK: Land of poop rivers. (Score:5, Informative)
My sister moved to the UK with her English wife pre-covid, became stuck there for a year, and has been absolutely shocked at how often the local river smells like sewage.
England, apparently the only country in the world where water services are fully privatised.
When privatised water companies took over from the nationalised industry, they had zero debt. Now they have huge debts, but at the same time have paid out huge amounts to shareholders.
(I live in Scotland, where the water industry is in public ownership)
Re:UK: Land of poop rivers. (Score:4, Interesting)
"I live in Scotland, where the water industry is in public ownership"
And has even worse problems than in england. But then thats SNP government for you.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/... [dailyrecord.co.uk]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-... [bbc.co.uk]
https://www.heraldscotland.com... [heraldscotland.com]
Re: UK: Land of poop rivers. (Score:2)
The UK is known for far stronger environmental protections than the US so that seems odd.
Which specific river? There are some that are basically wet mud but nature did that, and the smell is mud, not poop. This is worth googling.
Re: UK: Land of poop rivers. (Score:5, Informative)
The UK is known for far stronger environmental protections than the US so that seems odd.
You'd think so wouldn't you. NOPE.
Anyway, here's the first few links:
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
https://theriverstrust.org/key... [theriverstrust.org]
https://www.nationalworld.com/... [nationalworld.com]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/sci... [bbc.co.uk]
https://www.gov.uk/government/... [www.gov.uk]
https://www.sas.org.uk/waterqu... [sas.org.uk]
Fuck the Tories.
Re: UK: Land of poop rivers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: UK: Land of poop rivers. (Score:4, Informative)
Wait you forgot racism, transphobia and bigotry
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And corruption!
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I think nothing captures it all better than simply referring to "National Conservatism." You know, the people who invite Viktor Orbán & other well-known "strong leaders" to come & speak at their conventions.
Re: My sister moved to the UK with her wife (Score:2)
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And the Sudanese are very happy to live in Sudan instead of living in the utterly racist Western societies.
Not.
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Re:UK: Land of poop rivers. (Score:5, Interesting)
This problem has become a lot worse very recently. Basically, the UK was beholden to EU standards until late 2019.
There were concerns that leaving the EU would make it more difficult to obtain the chemistry needed to run the water treatment plants. True to their promise to slash red tape, one of the governments last year made it legal to dump untreated sewage in the rivers. I think this was supposed to be to absolve them if the necessary treatment chemicals were unavailable, but of course since it was cheaper not to treat the water properly, all the water companies started to skip the treatment process with happy abandon just to cut costs.
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Re:UK: Land of poop rivers. (Score:4, Interesting)
True, but all the dead fish don't just rise up from the grave. We've killed untold amounts of wildlife already with shit dumping - and our some of beaches are now pretty disgusting where once they were really quite lovely.
I'm old enough to remember how it was *before* Europe put in the rules they have - and here we are, our proud and self-determining nation going right back to that time. We really showed them how leaving the EU would be such a great thing!
Re: UK: Land of poop rivers. (Score:2)
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This is the part that demonstrates well just how satiated and utterly uninterested in thinking things through people have become.
Things that degrade fast tend to be highly reactive. Highly reactive things, if damaging, tend to be really damaging because it's the speed of reaction that commonly does the damage. Things that degrade slowly are typically low reactive by definition (if they reacted fast, they'd be gone fast), which means that whatever damage they do is a tiny fraction of a percent of what a high
Re: UK: Land of poop rivers. (Score:2)
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Well apparently they put up with a lot. Though the Thames was cleaned up because one particular year it was so bad the government couldn't get any work done since the buildings were located alongside the river. It was apparently called the Great Stink.
So stinking rivers is apparently a very British thing.
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Perfect timing (Score:5, Insightful)
July 3rd was the hottest day in decades and that's when these schmucks decide to do this?
Re:Perfect timing (Score:5, Informative)
The schmucks are still fighting climate change on their own soil. They are just withdrawing support to other countries because their economy is not so great as before. This is hardly a surprise: when things are bad, you tend to focus on your own people first.
This is one of the obvious thing that was going to happen, for anyone with two functioning neurons: ...
1. CO2 emissions are coming from fossil fuels
2. GDP has been historically mostly coupled with energy consumption, coming (also historically) from fossil fuels
3. GDP will and is already going down. Fossil fuels are getting more expensive.both in terms of actual price because it is a finite resource and we are getting to the bottom of it (conventional oil peak was in 2008, shale oil has a negative cash flow so far, and it will also peak at some point in the near future, or when there are no more investors willing to burn cash on it), but also in terms of increased negative externalities, like intense heatwaves, forest fires, hydric pressure
The good news regarding climate change, is that we will likely not reach a catastrophic scenario like +4 or +5 C. Just because natural feedback loops will send the world into turmoil, leading to decreased world GDP and/or population, which means less CO2. This "news" is just one of those feedback loop, and it is expected that governments try to protect their own interests first when shit hits the fan.
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Just realized I forgot the last point:
4. With less GDP, expect less cooperation between countries, in a world that would otherwise need it more...
Incidently, there is a parallel to be made here: with renewables, what we have shown so far is that we can build a lot of them for a cheap price in a world where fossil fuels and globalization are abundant. There is no guarantee it will stay the same in a world with less and less fossil fuels, and where globalization is not a given anymore.
The future is going to b
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Problem is they aren't really focusing on their own people either.
We have a cost of living crisis, brought on in part by high energy costs. Most British houses are heated by gas. To alleviate it, and meet our climate goals at the same time, we could insulate homes. In fact the previous government was doing it, back in the 00s. We could also get much cheaper electricity by approving more wind farms, but currently there is a ban on on-shore wind, and off-shore wind deployment is going much more slowly than in
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The problem with you is that you are always eager to blame others.
We could also get much cheaper electricity by approving more wind farms, but currently there is a ban on on-shore wind, and off-shore wind deployment is going much more slowly than industry wants.
You could get much cheaper, reliable, and less CO2 emitting electricity by having more wind, solar and nuclear. You are the one making everything slow. You are the one that opposed nuclear for the last 50 years, while it was the actual short-term solution to climate-change, and would have given us more than ample time to switch to renewables (with less impacts from climate change), to electrify other usages (electricity is only responsible fo
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You could get much cheaper, reliable, and less CO2 emitting electricity by having more wind, solar and nuclear. You are the one making everything slow.
I've got a pretty strong pro nuclear posting history, and even I know this is bullshit. Nuclear is not going to solve any problems quickly starting today.
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Nuclear is not going to solve any problems quickly starting today.
Nothing is going to solve any problems quickly starting today. Even if it was physically possible to magically replace all fossil fuels plants with solar/wind and tons of batteries or storage systems, electricity is only 1/4 of the CO2 emissions. You then need to adress transportation (individuals and goods), agriculture, livestock farming, heavy industry... You need to electrify all those things (let's forget the other limits we will run into, like some minerals ones), which means we will actually need bet
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Re:Perfect timing (Score:4, Informative)
Ironically the UK is actually building two new nuclear plants. One has barely started and the other is massively over budget and behind schedule, as expected. It's the most expensive form of electricity in the UK too.
Meanwhile it's renewables that are blocked, often by NIMBYs.
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The good news regarding climate change, is that we will likely not reach a catastrophic scenario like +4 or +5 C. Just because natural feedback loops will send the world into turmoil, leading to decreased world GDP and/or population, which means less CO2.
World turmoil means more war, which means more CO2. You forgot about the related positive feedback loops.
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World turmoil means more war, which means more CO2.
Not more CO2. War, as every human activity, generates CO2 emissions. But it also stops whole industry sectors, reduce population...
We have not had a real war yet. Conflicts yes. Not real wars.
Interesting times, as long as you are lucky enough to be on the right side of the impacts.
But you can feel good: most of those impacts come directly or indirectly from climate change, which comes from CO2 emissions. And you keep actively fighting against nuclear, which has been a low-carbon energy source available for
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But you can feel good: most of those impacts come directly or indirectly from climate change, which comes from CO2 emissions. And you keep actively fighting against nuclear, which has been a low-carbon energy source available for the last 50 years. Lie to yourself all you want, but you are responsible for that mess.
You nuclear playboys are so predictably boring, and always accuse others of lying while you are busy lying. Nuclear is not a low-carbon or low-emissions energy source when its cradle to grave emissions are accounted for, and no other kind matters.
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Lie to yourself all you want.
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Lie to yourself all you want.
This is about you lying to me, not about anything between me and myself.
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If only we had reputable [wikipedia.org] sources [iea.org] regarding CO2 emissions per kWh per energy source [carbonbrief.org]. You can even go back to almost every discussion we've had over the last few months, and look at the links I provided. I would love to be able to do the same, but you never post any source to back up your claims.
Please repeat after me: lie to yourself all you want, I know it makes you feel good.
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Your own link shows that solar and wind are superior to nuclear. Thanks for playing, please learn to read, kthxbye
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Before learning to read, please try to remember what you wrote less than 30 mins ago: you are the one saying nuclear is not low-carbon. You are the one trying to oppose solar, wind and nuclear. So which one is it: the links are correct on that solar/wind are superior to nuclear, but not on the fact that nuclear is low-carbon (with the advantage of being more reliable, but hey, who cares) ? You really need to make up your mind at some point.
Thanks for playing
This really shows your mindset. This is a game to you, your point is
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Before learning to read, please try to remember what you wrote less than 30 mins ago: you are the one saying nuclear is not low-carbon. You are the one trying to oppose solar, wind and nuclear.
That is a lie, so you are the liar. I am promoting solar and wind over nuclear. You don't even know what the argument is, kid. Here's a nickel, go get one that makes more sense. I'm used to arguing with people who can follow the thread, and that doesn't include you.
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I am promoting solar and wind over nuclear.
This is your initial comment [slashdot.org]. As you can see, you were not promoting solar/wind over nuclear in it. You were just spreading a lie, which is that nuclear is not a low-carbon energy source. Without any source supporting your claim, of course.
You don't even know what the argument is
Well, if you change the argument whenever you want, without telling the other side of the discussion, it makes it pretty hard to make sense of what you are saying. This is just an example of the mess in your head.
Please try to follow. Or grow a pair and assume your mistak
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You nuclear playboys are so predictably boring, and always accuse others of lying while you are busy lying. Nuclear is not a low-carbon or low-emissions energy source when its cradle to grave emissions are accounted for, and no other kind matters.
Please show your work where you also compare it to cradle to grave and required energy storage solutions for other methods.
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Nuclear is not a low-carbon or low-emissions energy source when its cradle to grave emissions are accounted for, and no other kind matters.
I believe you are mistaken.
Nuclear energy has the advantage that plants are of high power density compared to renewables, which means relatively speaking they are small. That means less concrete and steel both of which emit huge amounts of CO2 during production. Solar requires rather costly manufacture of solar cells, and wind turbines need a lot of petrochemicals to mak
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July 3rd was the hottest day in decades and that's when these schmucks decide to do this?
They are setting priorities. We must all set priorities or nothing gets done. While a government can do more than one thing at a time they still have limited resources, if everything has the same priorities then nothing gets done because there's not enough money and manpower to go around.
If people want to prioritize their fear of nuclear power over their fear of global warming then CO2 emissions will not be reduced. If a government feels an increasingly aggressive China and Russia are a greater threat th
It's just like an idiot's pissing contest (Score:2)
Only the amount matters, what is actually done with that money or who benefits the most from it, doesn't seem to matter at all.
Details (Score:2)
Anyone know what this money was actually going towards? Fraudulent carbon credits, mitigation strategies, or real reductions?
Re:Details (Score:5, Informative)
There's a link to a showcase of the projects [ukpact.co.uk] in the article, although it doesn't really go into enough detail to judge whether the funds were well spent or not. Even on the basis of what is there though, I'm inclined to agree with Rishi that the money could be better spent at home. Do we in the UK really need to be funding "Incorporating green practices into the Chinese financial ecosystem"?
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So can't we shuffle where the money goes then? We're the 6th largest economy in the world - we have the 6th largest responsibility to help those below us then. Cutting the budget really just says "can't be arsed with you lot, because we're a little less rich than we were a couple of years ago". Suffice to say, we're a little less rich in part because of our own government's shambolic management of our country, not because of anything the countries we help have done.
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Democracy only works when there is a plurality of opinions and voices. Otherwise, all you have is a cult that never changes direction and likely acts in totalitarian ways to ensure there is never any dissent from the accepted 'truth'.
I agree democracy only works when there are no Republicans around to mess it up.
They can start with admitting Trump lost the election, throw him in the trash and start over.
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Wake me when you can actually do something about the baby boomers and their voting choices.
Ah, yes, another member of the pro-democracy movement for whom it's only democracy if the majority agrees with them.
You're strawmaning (Score:2)
Boomers literally set fire to the planet, are actively working to end democracy for the sake of petty bigotries and wrecked the economy with reckless deregulation for stupid reasons and then want a pat on the fucking back like they stormed the beached of Normandy or something.
Boomers will be remembered as the worst Generation of Human Beings in
Re: Boomers are going to do as much damage as they (Score:1)
Don't worry. They are getting old and need more and more medical care. There are opportunities there.
They're overwhelmingly in charge (Score:2)
If a black man in the 1800s talked in terms of "us" vs "them" you wouldn't be surprised, because of the power dynamics back then. This is the same thing. The boomers have all the power and will have until they're rottin
Re: They're overwhelmingly in charge (Score:2)
this is not even ignoring the problem (Score:2)
This is actively ensuring a worse future.
Life is good when you can kick the can down the road.
I wonder what percentage of GDP the damage caused by global warming will be ? Who cares ?! It will be after the next election !
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What kind of damage is done when you're pulling BILLIONS out of the economy for this crap?
Negative damage.
Similar to the damage you cause to your car by changing the old oil.
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Bullshit.
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Soooo, you think this money gets buried somewhere or burned? How stupid are you?
In actual reality, this money is spent on things and hence goes right back into the economy.
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Spent on things?
"Goes right back into the economy"?
Are you SURE they're all products made in the country?
Are you sure that this money isn't being burned in other things like self-reinforcing "research"?
You don't know.
Because there's near-zero oversight on this.
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Exactly that, the Tories know that they will lose the next election and are pursing policies which will make it impossible for the next government to succeed. Does it benefit the country, fuck no. But when the next government fails, it means the Tories stand more of a chance of being re-elected.
Re:this is not even ignoring the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
You should leave the West for a vacation in East and South East Asia soon.
Just sit there on a street and look at, nay, marvel at the complete NONEXISTENCE of any environmental protection, the complete disregard for not using fossil fuels, the sheer number of combustion engines passing by per minute even in cities that have absolutely, insanely perfect public transport, like Tokyo and Seoul.
And then count the number of AC units on their 20-40 story housing towers, where every apartment complex has 5 or 10 of these, where this one complex has easily enough the same number inhabitants as a small Western city. Every district of their cities being much larger than most Western cities. And EVERY apartment has 1-4 AC units running 24/7 in summer.
This will get you a sense for the scale of the problem and a sense of humility about the actual impact of everything we do in the West. Outside of the US, the rest of the Western world is a tiny sliver on the planetary scale of things.
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Life is good when you can kick the can down the road.
Only as long as you can do it. At some time a hugely inflated bill will come due. But people are stupid and cannot plan ahead.
Tory tax cuts coming⦠(Score:5, Informative)
The governing party are desperate to make tax cuts in a futile attempt to win votes in the general election that will kick them out, which happens before the end of next year. Now we see one place theyâ(TM)re making savings to pay for that.
Four days ago, the Minister for the International Environment and Climate, Zac Goldsmith, resigned with a public and personal attack on the PM, accusing him of being uninterested and apathetic towards the environment. The PM tried to deflect this by accusing Goldsmith of trying to sidestep accusations of undermining Parliamentâ(TM)s Privileges Committee, whoâ(TM)ve just completing investigating Boris Johnsonâ(TM)s lies. Now the truth about that resignation comes out. I canâ(TM)t wait for these people to go next year.
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Haha they're never gone because it's Lord-fucking-Goldsmith. He's there forever and Starmer is too fucking conservative to actually fix it.
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At least Starmer is electable,
Yes.
Look, I do not like the guy. He's a dyed in the wool conservative (though not a Tory). He has no opinions beyond figure out what the Tories are doing and take one step to the left. He's utterly opposed to change even to the point where he won't promise to repeal legislation he opposed because it's already passed. He's also an authoritarian, frankly.
With that said I'd take him in a heartbeat over the current clowns in charge or the likes of Corbyn.
He's also been doing a good
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Corbyn was the last chance the UK had of becoming a decent country again. Now it is just in managed decline, and will probably break up.
The last few years have proven that Corbyn was right about a lot of things. Insulating homes, free broadband, a national energy company, nationalized railways, and a general re-alignment so that things work for the many, not the very rich few.
Starmer will continue the failed legacy of Thatcherism and brexit.
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Corbyn was the last chance the UK had of becoming a decent country again. Now it is just in managed decline, and will probably break up.
No, I don't think he was. He was unelectable, 50% amazing policies which I love and 50% lunacy.
The last few years have proven that Corbyn was right about a lot of things. Insulating homes, free broadband, a national energy company, nationalized railways, and a general re-alignment so that things work for the many, not the very rich few.
I liked quite a lot of his policies. T
Worthless pledges (Score:2)
These so-called pledges are no different from the other worthless pledges by private companies. The moment the economy looks bad and public support of the ruling party wanes, these pledges would be dropped like used diapers.
The only ones fooled were voters who were swayed by these empty pledges.
Environment be darned... (Score:1)
There's war profiteers that need to be satisfied. How else are they going to be able to afford their ecocide bunkers?
UK Plans To Drop Flagship Climate Pledge (Score:1)
UK Plans To Drop Flagship $14.7 Billion Climate Pledge
In other words: "Fossil fuel industry successfully bribes Tory government into dropping climate pledge. Nobody surprised at Tory betrayal and corruption (except British electorate)."
Just print more moeny. (Score:1)
pointless anyway (Score:2)
doesn't matter what the UK does; it does matter what huge countries do, and they are going to pollute for decades.
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In principle it matters because of soft power. UK is an influential country, world's #2 according to https://brandfinance.com/press... [brandfinance.com] . If they decided to make a big and costly effort, they probably would try and influence others into doing the same so they're not the only one to bear the cost. But this was the idea of being in the EU and they decided to get out of that so they can do what they want without having to talk to others, so I guess in practice you're right, it does not matter what they do.
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UK is too tiny to matter for purposes of pollution. The earth doesn't care about per capita only absolute numbers, and countries have a central point of control of that so control over absolute number
great! now, go totally nuclear power (Score:2)
much of this climate change funding is just waste/fraud/abuse to get jobs for Green Party leadership & hacks. The UK has nuclear energy, but could do much more for their economy and the environment if they switched to an all-nuclear electric generating scheme.
UK Plans To Drop Flagship (Score:2)
They are going to give up HMS Queen Elizabeth ?
Fine, but change something else (Score:2)
Use the data from sats ( most recent and high precision across all nations).
And then skip normalizing since it gets complicated and we are far too late in this game. Instead, just apply the tax based on say the last 2 years of directions that a nation/state/province/etc have gone:
2 years of up? 100% of the ta
Priorities (Score:2)
I just find the summary a bit humorous in context. The world is full of problems.
The summary basically says we can't spend on Climate Change because we need to spend on Women and girls.
Everything is a good cause, but one potentially is catastrophic to entire systems impacting whole populations, drought, farming, flooding, natural disasters.... The other a noble goal, but the world functions okay enough even if women's rights are bad in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan or something.
Agh. (Score:1)