Governments love target-setting for two not very good reasons. The first is that the targets, set in the distant future, invariably sound more impressive than the current reality.
And the second is that, by the time the truth emerges, the target-setters will be long gone. At one level, this is the harmless stuff of politics. The danger is when targets become the substitutes for action or else the rationale for policies which, in any other context, do not make a lot of sense.
The decarbonisation imperative has created a whole new industry in target-setting, and nowhere more so than in Scotland. Our objectives of “a 42% cut in emissions by 2020” to be followed by an 80% cut by 2050 have won widespread praise for their ambition, which exceeds that of the UK as a whole.
However, I would wager with some confidence that most readers of this column, by definition a well-informed elite, far less the public at large could not answer the question: “42% of what?”.
Perhaps of 2009 emissions, when the Climate Change (Scotland) Act became law? Not a bit of it. The carbon reduction objectives which are incorporated into the target take a baseline of 1990 which is already a distant point in history for a large part of the population. And the good news (for target-setting purposes) is that between 1990 and 2008, Scotland’s emissions declined by 21%.
Conveniently enough, this is exactly half of Scotland’s 2020 target, so essentially what now needs to happen is that we should cut our emissions by as much in 12 years as had happened, largely spontaneously, in the previous 18 – throughout at least half of which, the “carbon reduction agenda” scarcely registered on the political Richter scale.
At this point, a little hint of doubt should start to arise. Why, we should wonder, did emissions fall by 21% throughout a period when renewable energy had hardly started to fea ture and carbon reduction policies had scarcely started to bite?
And the largest part of the answer is simply that throughout the period in question a substantial proportion of our industry closed down in favour of cheaper goods from overseas, in effect exporting UK carbon footprint.
Closed factories certainly equate to lower emissions – in fact, zero. Unfortunately, however, they also result in fewer manufacturing jobs and communities which have to live with the consequences. Thus the point is made that carbon reduction, taken in isolation, is not an undisputed good – since it reflects conditions which are not beneficial to either the economy or society.
Neither is this simply an historic point.
When the Committee on Climate Change earlier this year published an interim report on how things are going in Scotland, it stated bluntly: “Scottish emissions fell in 2009, mainly due to recession”.
So is this something we were supposed to cheer about?
Even more tellingly, the report continued: “They are likely to have risen in 2010 given the relatively cold weather and also due to increased use of carbon-intensive fuels in power generation and energy-intensive industry”.
So let’s get this right. For all the hype about targets, the truth seems to be that the one sure way of reducing carbon emissions is through recession and closure of industry, while a blast of cold weather will increase them since, despite all the talk about renewables, the fall-back when demand increases is fossil fuels.
So, whether deliberately or otherwise, the setting of targets serves to deceive rather than enlighten. The actual outcomes will not be determined by the targets set but by the policies pursued. And since the continuing decline of manufacturing industry has to reach its nadir at some point, then other strategies have to be developed.
The main plank in the Scottish approach is the development of renewable energy (which, for practical purposes, currently means a massive expansion of onshore wind). But that will still require the back-up of baseload electricity which increasingly will rely on fossil fuels due to the Scottish Government’s decision to abolish the carbon-free 20% of Scottish capacity that came from nuclear.
Like most Scots, I want to see more evidence of economic growth rather than less – and if that means more emissions in the short-term then that is a by-product that has to be lived with.
I also believe, for the reasons stated, that the renewables emphasis is going to deliver a lot less in net carbon reduction terms than the hype would suggest. So if we are interested in outcomes rather than targets, the truth is that we should be doing an awful lot more in these areas of policy which get far less attention than their carbon reduction potential deserves – transport, construction, heating, energy efficiency and so on. We need them all.
These are still the cinderellas of the carbon reduction debate but they are not only vital to getting anywhere near the targets that have been set but are also capable of producing the “green jobs” which are much spoken of but so far not greatly backed up by evidence.
Carbon reduction with recession is easy. Carbon reduction with job-creating growth is much more difficult.
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