Conservatives make it look easy!

Climate change model? Just look at old Blighty

The Age
Paddy Manning

NO, YOU don't have to live in a cave to tackle climate change. Just look at Britain, where the coalition government led by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron this week bound itself to halve greenhouse gas emissions against 1990 levels by 2027 - the most ambitious target in the developed world.

Read it and weep. As Australian politics sinks deeper into a sleazy mire, making progress impossible, dear old Blighty - amid a crippling recession and austerity cuts - is lighting a path to a clean economy.
Britain, with 62 million people, emits about 574 million tonnes of greenhouse gas a year (say nine tonnes a head). That should drop to roughly 380 million tonnes a year by 2023-27.

Australia, population 22 million, pumped out 543 million tonnes last year (25 tonnes a head) and we're kidding ourselves that cutting 2000 levels of 556 million tonnes a year by 5 per cent to 528 million tonnes by 2020, is tough.