EU Climate change plans

The EU released their draft bills on how they will tackle climate change and reach their goals of greenhouse reduction over the next 50 odd years. This is a good thing because it gives all the other countries a chance to refine (and dare I say it, improve) the laws before they are introduced in their respective countries.

I found two things to be interesting in the bills: the first was the decision to set a 30 per cent reduction target on 1990 levels if other developed countries come on board to match the EUs 20 per cent by 2020, the second was the biofuels target. I think the first decision is a good thing, the second, not so much. This is because as with any new thing, there always needs to be someone to 'test the water' and if the Europeans are brave enough to do this by extending their 20 per cent target, then the rest of us should all appulade them because they will make our lives easier for it.

Regarding the biofuels and the intention to have 10 per cent of all vehicle fuel coming from biofuels by 2020, I am not so sure it is a good move. While the dependance on oil and the by-products it creates are definitely a problem, there would hardly appear to be enough farming land to actually support a large-scale take up of biofuels as serious alternative.

With all things like this, I think some longer term thinking is needed; what would actually be the impact of wide-spread use of biofuels especially given motor vehicle use is going up, not down (and China and India are really starting to purchase cars!). In my mind, it just can't work based on the infrastructure requirements to support people needing to fill their cars, let alone trying to find the land to grow the crops! Even biofuels for the aviation idustry seems a bit of a stretch, but at least it seems a little more realistic given that infrastructure requirements are more condensed.

The problem with these types of targets is that they potentially divert resources from other initiatives that may actually be much better in the long-run. Most major car manufacturers - lead by Toyota - have already announced desire to completely do away with the internal combustion engine. If they do this, what's the point of having a biofuel industry when it is based on the premise of an internal combustion engine?

There are many other examples of this, and in Australia, nuclear subsidies - while not quite as silly as biofuel targets - are a good example. According the previous Prime Minister Howard's own report, nuclear power is 10-15 years away, would need to be subsidised by government and benefit from a carbon price in order to compete with coal and gas electricity generation. Bringing in the concept of long-term thinking, surely the existence of solar power in 10 - 15 years has to be factored in. Again, thinking about the long-term, isn't solar energy development a much better prospect than any other source given it's readily available, wont present us with a problem at some point down the line where we 'run out' of uranium, and what's more is a more envrionmentally friendly solution?

And with that in mind, if the Government subsidies nuclear - espeically the development of a large scale nuclear power capacity in Australia - isn't this just diverting resources that might go to solar which is probably a much better long-term solution anyway. Government subsidies for nuclear seem even more ridiculous when you think that in 10 years solar technology will probably look vastly different than it does today...!