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Enrique Gili is a freelance writer covering Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS), issues for regional magazines in the Southland and beyond. I live in Ocean Beach, San Diego the coolest beach town around.

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UK Unveils Climate Change Bill

Category: Environment
Posted on: March 15, 2007 5:28 PM, by EJGili

As nations and politicians in many parts of Europe compete to burnish their green credentials, the British government claimed Tuesday to be the first to propose binding laws enforcing a steep cut in carbon emissions, in this case, a 60 percent decrease by 2050. ( IHT)

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yesterday MIT published a major review paper on coal, and Carbon Capture and Sequestration. http://web.mit.edu/coal
A few highlights:
We conclude that CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) is the critical enabling
technology that would reduce CO2 emissions significantly while also allowing
coal to meet the world's pressing energy needs.

Thus, we beleive high priority should be given to a program that will
demonstrate CO2 sequestration at a scale of 1 million tonnes CO2 per year in
several geologies.

There is the possibility of a perverse incentive for increased early
investment in coal-fored power plants without capture, in expectation that the
emissions from these plants would potentialy be "grandfathered" by the grant
of free CO2 allowances as part of future carbon emissions regulations.

The DOE Clean Coal program is not on a path to address our priority
recommendations because the level of funding falls far short of what is
required and the program content is not aligned with our strategic objectives.

To date, the DOE CCS program has not been pursued with an urgency to establish
the key enabling science and technology needed for increased coal use in a
carbon-constrained world.

I know that sci-blogs readers hate coal (as do I), but being that none of us are going to be given a magic wand to banish the stuff, it
is important to minimize the damage that an energy-greedy world is going to do with the stuff. It is time this research gets the resources it merits.

Posted by: bigTom | March 16, 2007 12:02 AM

The Irish government seems to be acting rather silly:

[ The opposition claims ] the Government's strategy is to maximise carbon purchase to minimise carbon reduction which is environmentally irresponsible and economically unsustainable.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/0315/breaking9.htm

Posted by: blf | March 16, 2007 10:40 AM