"Ships should be included in the UK's CO2 emissions"

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[danny]

According to the bbc, Greenhouse gas emissions from shipping should be included in the UK's climate change budgets, the Committee on Climate Change has recommended. Stating that Without curbs, emissions from ships will form a larger fraction of the global total in future.

Read the full article here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15554523

[clanky]

How exactly would they like us to reduce emissions?

Maybe we could go back to being powered by oars, not only would this reduce CO2 emissions, but would also help to reduce unemployment figures as well.  At  $700 per ton ship owners are already doing everything they can to reduce fuel consumption, any further moves to reduce emissions will just be another pointless paper excercise which will have absolutely no practical effect in any real terms.

I would love to hear these academics howl when they can't have lamb for dinner because the ship which brought it had to stop because the CO2 emissions limit had been reached, or maybe their new car desn't arive because yet another pointless environmental law was the last straw for the shipping company which was supposed to deliver it, maybe they will be quite happy not to have heating in their home because the oil tanker which was supposed to deliver oil to the refinery which powered the power station wasn't considered green enough, or the container ship bringing their new television was arrested for not filling out the correct paperwork to prove that they had segregated all their garbage into 7 different categories for the local council to collect and throw in the same skip at great expense to the ship owner, and of course they won't mind that their foreign holiday has to be cancelled to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from ferries (all aeroplanes will of course be grounded as they hurt the sky even more than ships)

Muppets.

[saltydog]

I'm afraid it's a matter of cost.. Dirty oil is cheap oil..

[clanky]

In terms of CO2 emissions it doesn't matter which oil you burn, even burning gas will produce as much CO2 as burning the heavy fuel that we burn at sea. It has an effect on other pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, but not on CO2.

The only way we will produce less CO2 is to move away from the consumer society that we live in, which means no new car every 3 years, no new telephone every 3 months, not having 3 cars and 6 TV's per household etc.  While society still demands to be fed it's consumer goods and still demands electricity to power them and more and more cars to drive around in, we will produce CO2 and no amount of hand wringing environmentalists, taxing politicians, or paperwork loving civil servants will do anything to stop, or even slow, the increase.