Norway Offers to Cut Carbon Emmissions by 40%

Discussions over what is going to happen, or not happen, at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December are, so to speak, starting to heat up. I note today that Norway "may" cut its carbon emmissions by 40% by 2020, the biggest pledge by any individual government to date.

Does this mean that the Norwegians are suddenly all going to sell their cars, give up their central heating and refuse to buy plasma TVs? We think not. So what are they going to do to achieve this monumental decrease?

The increasingly competitive language of the PR game governments are playing with regards to climate change also warns against taking such figures at face value. To reduce levels by 40% of 1990 levels by 2020 sounds better, but must surely be less, than to 40% of current levels. Just a thought.

I suppose that Australia is being quite honest in a funny kind of way, with its particular head-in-the-sand attitudes. Maybe Copenhagen should be less about political spin and more about reducing consumption in ways that we can all understand. Unless of course they are sitting there right now powering this website by cycle power alone, in which case I apologise profusely and put my cynicism right back where it belongs, on the next gravy train to Timbuktu.

United Nations Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, December 7th-18th 2009