UK Gov Agency Lead Economist Slams G8 "Plan", Brown For "Abrogation Of Responsibility"

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The government's own carbon reduction agency has attacked the climate plan agreed at the G8 summit as not doing "a single thing" to reduce emissions, and accused leaders - including the UK prime minister, Gordon Brown - of "an abrogation of responsibility".

The headline promise to cut carbon emissions by half by 2050 has already been criticised for not setting interim targets or specifying whether the baseline is 1990 or a more recent date. The latter is a critical issue because of big emissions rises in the last two decades.

Professor Michael Grubb, the chief economist of the Carbon Trust, said the richest country leaders also failed to make any firm promises even on issues they could agree outside the UN negotiations, like tackling emissions from aviation and shipping, details of how promises of "clean technology transfer" would happen, and increasing funds for poorer countries to adapt to climate change.

"There's a very big gap between the rhetoric of consensus about the size of the problem and the need for reductions, and the lack of anything specific that will make any difference," Grubb told the guardian.co.uk. "One can see five pages of text - I'm not sure I can see a single thing that's actually going to reduce emissions." The lack of detail was particularly disappointing after a promise at the G8 summit hosted by Britain in Gleneagles three years ago that it would develop concrete proposals by this year's summit in Japan, said Grubb.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/10/climatechange.carbonemissions