Monbiot on carbon contradictions

Tues 19 July in the Guardian's "Comment and Debate" section. George points out in his inimitable ironic manner that our government claims to be reducing carbon emissions while sanctioning new programmes of gas and oil extraction (with tax breaks for BP).  The sleight of hand is breath-taking: licences issued represent a "transitional investment" as we move to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. "This is transitional in the sense that switching from 20 cigarettes a day to 40 is a step towards giving up", as GM puts it.

Appanently CCS (carbon capture and storage) is the answer to everything. One small problem is that, even if we master the technology to do this at power stations, the greater part of our emissions come from heating sytems and vehicles - so we can't capture anything here.

So last week's White paper on the subject seems to George to show that "the primary purpose of CCS is not to prevent climate change, but to permit the construction of a new generation of coal-fired power stations".  Apparently any "CCS demonstration plant" is exempt from the emissions standard - to allow the government to compare the different systems!  In any case these super planet-friendly new power stations are obliged only to do carbon capture on a small part of their emissions!

Alice in Wonderland again, says I.