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Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

reuters.com

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Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#211

Post by ourlordcaffeine »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #142
barnacled wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment perfectly epitomises the 'climate crisis' extinction rebellion Greta Thunberg school of response to climate issues. Firstly - any response to climate change that does not include China and really India and other emerging economies too is more or less useless. Why should we deny such countries the benefits of full industrialisation? Secondly - while in some respects you are correct, looking at CO2 numbers…

>> Firstly - any response to climate change that does not include China and really India Are these not mostly proxy emissions for western countries? E.g. is it the case that people in these countries are emitting pollution due to their lifestyles, or is the pollution mostly from energy, transport and manufacturing in the pursuit of selling products to western countries? >> During the covid19 situation we've seen the…

>During the covid19 situation we've seen the impact of shutting down parts of the economy on GDP

I believe we've also seen the impact of not locking down due to fretting over the economy, which is a longer lockdown further down the line because the health services got overwhelmed. Basically not locking down saved 4 months of economy at the expense of the next 2 years.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#212

Post by Mvandenbergh »

jcvhaarst wrote: post #12

Rather late to the party in Europe : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_veh...

Is it? Most of those countries are also at 2030 with just two in the 2020s. Admittedly that table is way out date.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#213

Post by CraigJPerry »

barnacled wrote: post #180
CraigJPerry wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did I suggest not addressing it? Yes, you said: >> The correct approach is a practical middle ground where we try to do what we can Then provided no examples of what we can do, in your opinion. This isn’t a problem that can be solved by right leaning politics, this is the right’s blind spot. You’ll need some creative lefty types to sort this out and then you’ll need some efficient righty types to come in a clean up…

You are correlating 'a practical middle ground' with 'not addressing it'. I am also really not sure why you are bringing politics into this. I get the analogy but that's such an easy way to turn this into a divisive discussion that I think we should leave that there. You are also glossing over the consequences of an extreme response to climate change - an honest discussion talks about the cost as well as the benefits…

Sure, but what is that something?

Surely the “something” has to be impossible to achieve given your assertions (which i agree with) that there will be severe economic consequences.

The idea of some magical possibility where we all get to keep doing what we’re doing but climate change does away is impossible. There will be economic losers (and winners)

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#214

Post by robhu »

arethuza wrote: post #79
Jaruzel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Brit[1] this convention still irks me. Maybe we should just be American about it, and call the whole of the UK 'England', and pretend Scotland is it's own country? /s --- [1] Yes, I get the irony of calling myself a 'Brit', but 'Uker' just doesn't sound right.

I suspect most people from the UK when asked their nationality will answer English, Scottish etc.

I'm from the UK (England in particular) - I think most people from England would say they are British (sometimes depending on context / person / non-requirement for brevity: 'from the UK' instead).

Perhaps a higher proportion of non-English UK people would answer otherwise.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#215

Post by asenk »

ppf wrote: post #195
asenk wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The overall lifecycle CO2 benefit of EVs and hybrids as they stand is minimal. That's simply not true. >Net emission reductions from electric cars and heat pumps in 59 world regions over time >..We show that already under current carbon intensities of electricity generation, electric cars and heat pumps are less emission intensive than fossil-fuel-based alternatives in 53 world regions, representing 95% of the globa…

Some simple back-of-the-envelope maths shows that, due to the massively increased amount of energy needed to manufacture an EV, it takes somwhere near half the life of the car (assuming 100k miles) to pay back that "CO2 debt". And even then, you are still limited by the net CO2 emissions of your electricity source. This is why I claim that the CO2 benefits are minimal (not none, or negative). The abstract of the arti…

Actual research vs. "back-of-the-envelope maths". I'll go with the research.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#216

Post by Ixio »

feralimal wrote: post #191
Sholmesy wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a religious position. It's a chain of trust, as an individual you can decide where that trust begins and ends for you, but it's impossible for you to be at the forefront measuring every possible variable, and being an expert in every field, conducting analysis of the data. At some point you need to defer to people who know (or at least, you believe they know) more than you. It's like with our computers spyin…

Fair enough. But I don't trust. Can I know? If I cannot know, I will not trust. To trust would weaken me, and empower those who hide information to hide even more. This is where we are. I do live in a zero trust world. I trust government and corporations least of all. Individuals I have much more time for. Although zero trust was disconcerting at first, I also find it liberating. I know that there is lots I do not kn…

Do you grow your own food ? Where does your zero trust end ?

Science is very difficult to cheat on such high visibility issues. There is a huge scientific consensus on climate change, from experts of all countries and diverse backgrounds. For it all to be a huge conspiracy seems like a pretty big leap of faith, that they are genuine is a simpler explanation.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#217

Post by baq »

rusk wrote: post #185
black_puppydog wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then humanity is clearly headed off a cliff in that landscape. Which, by the way, has been signaled to everyone for decades now. Just our political processes have not allowed those signals to reach "the economy" and we seem to be unable to act on anything that isn't felt by the economy. Which, I might add, is not a god-given fact, but rather a political choice. Anyway, we will have a cliff. And it will have been anno…

> political processes have not allowed those signals to reach "the economy" This right here is the achilles heal of free market theory.

the market can and will correct itself. there are two problems however:

- actually getting rules implemented and enforced (political suicide by regulators - had an example of that in my own country just a couple months ago, made a mess in the government, the new rules didn't pass in parliament, governing party lost 10 pp in polls anyway)

- very irregular period of convergence from old rules to new (societal turmoil guaranteed, political consequences very likely) - see thatcher's closure of British coal mines for a good example

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#218

Post by CraigJPerry »

ourlordcaffeine wrote: post #211
CraigJPerry wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Firstly - any response to climate change that does not include China and really India Are these not mostly proxy emissions for western countries? E.g. is it the case that people in these countries are emitting pollution due to their lifestyles, or is the pollution mostly from energy, transport and manufacturing in the pursuit of selling products to western countries? >> During the covid19 situation we've seen the…

>During the covid19 situation we've seen the impact of shutting down parts of the economy on GDP I believe we've also seen the impact of not locking down due to fretting over the economy, which is a longer lockdown further down the line because the health services got overwhelmed. Basically not locking down saved 4 months of economy at the expense of the next 2 years.

Well yeah that’s an excellent point. I think i’d rather be in NZ or Aus than in the UK today.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#219

Post by LockAndLol »

LatteLazy wrote: post #30

This perfectly epitomises the uk (and the rest of the worlds) attitude to global warming: * it's a non binding commitment to do something but not for at least a decade * it's not enough even if it does happen * it will be too late by then (it probably already is for anything but drastic action) * it's totally at the whim of future governments who will be no more willing to spend the money/time/popularity than the cur…

The responses to your comment are the epitome of our society: This is fine. We're fine. We'll be just fine.

Even among people who don't deny climate change this complacent attitude prevails.

It's why I believe this video presents everything nicely https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsA3PK8bQd8

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#220

Post by matthewmacleod »

barnacled wrote: post #198
matthewmacleod wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And of course this comment completely epitomises the hand-wringing, pearl-clutching “won’t somebody please think of the economy!!” liberal centrism that results in absolutely fuck-all happening. A non-binding commitment that tells industry “in ten years you folks will need to be in a position to switch to a technology which is already reasonably viable so better get scaling” is a pretty milquetoast effort, and descri…

Do you really think I advocate for no action to be taken? Taking your first sentence at face value it appears you believe in an all or nothing approach. Also, and again I know this is a sensitive area so I understand why you are coming across this way, but comments like 'you should be much more worried about this problem than you are' are unnecessary and divisive. I am extremely worried about climate change. That is…

Do you really think I advocate for no action to be taken? Taking your first sentence at face value it appears you believe in an all or nothing approach.

I think you take a commonly-seen approach that tends to argue that any even moderate efforts to deal with the problem are too extreme. I do not think the phrase you have repeatedly used - “all or nothing” – has any value, since it tends to define even relatively modest steps as “all”.

Do you consider needing to upgrade 400,000 substations and installing charge points along ~200,000km of roads within 10-20 years reasonably viable?

Yes.

My whole issue with this is not that we should take NO action, it's that for any action taken we should either:

In other words, you are probably advocating for a more extreme approach - that is, perhaps make these commitments legally binding and provide the infrastructure and planning to follow through on them. I completely agree with this, and that’s the point - this decision itself is pretty weak, and cannot credibly be called a “climate hysteria” response.

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