EU Law Leaps Forward while UK flatfoots in Energy Wilderness

Posted by Strangely Environment, Freedom Add comments

Sep 252008

Some wonderful news this week for people worried about the real future of our world.

Earth, courtesy Apollo 17, and probably the most reproduced image of all time

The EU are hammering down on car emissions!

EU rejects efforts to delay CO2 limits on cars

RPT-UPDATE 2-EU lawmakers snub big carmakers over carbon curbs

Blow to carmakers

Climate package: Carbon-free cars? (pre-vote EU Parliament post)

Reducing CO2 emissions from light-duty vehicles

CO2 emissions This week, while the world has been watching the financial body swerves in the US Banking system, the abysmal display of continuing corporate greed has finally tipped EU law-makers into ignoring incredible lobbying from the huge motor car manufacturers. Quoted on Bloomberg, EU Parliament Panel Backs Plan to Cap Car CO2 in 2012 (Update2), Chris Davies said;

This is a big blow for corporate lobbying

It’s also a fantastic deal for consumers, inventors, entrepreneurs from Europe and elsewhere. It will reduce our insatiable demand for energy somewhat as well – so that’s a bit like what John Hutton at Monday’s Labour Party Conference said;

[...] that guaranteeing the security of energy supplies has become a “defining” issue for the country [...] the UK was facing a “tough fight” to secure the billions needed to meet the country’s energy needs and had to ensure the “right climate” for investment [...] the battle for energy security is going to define the fight for Britain’s future[...]

…and I agree.

However Hutton, most of Labour and the opposition see energy security as building nuclear and coal fired power stations and then having everyone driving (magically) in battery powered cars with unproven overall environmental credentials (i.e. heavy metal extraction and disposal costs, safety of electrolytes etc).

Nevertheless, overall I see great gains by the focussing of minds. The United Nations does too! Yesterday it prompted this from the BBC; UN forecasts boom in ‘green jobs’. In fact, I’m far more optimistic about people’s inate capacity to create and innovate than even the actual UN report is!

Now contrast the UK’s current efforts with tiny Portugal, a country with a long coast facing the vigorous Atlantic Ocean – er…like the UK

Portugal embraces wave power

It’s a world first, apparently, according to the report. However, those of us who watched Tomorrow’s World on the BBC in the seventies and then later saw Demoness Thatcher cut all wave power research, know better… Several competing systems were all trialled and produced electricity in amounts comparable to the Portuguese “new” world first.

Still, Pelamis Wave Power is a UK company, who’ve struggled against governmental short-sightedness out in the “Free market”.

Hopefully, people and government are now realising that market forces aren’t the be-all and end-all of everything and that a “free market” economy still needs to be government driven, especially in areas of large capital projects and national security.

The new EU law is a prime example. It strives to force huge resource intensive vehicles off the road. Paradoxically, Daimler, one of the large lobbying spurned car makers above who are against the EU law, is responding to the power of the market by unloading it’s US Chrysler operation… :-?

Daimler seeks Chrysler stake sale

70% of Chrysler production is on gas-guzzling van and SUV. Unsurprisingly, they don’t make money! They are getting rid of thousands of jobs. These unemployed people could make nice small cars that people want to buy, but instead, the company mindset is big, big, big.

Most US car maker actions are in sharp contrast to (some) European thinking!

Dozy Tory MEP Martin Callanan, thinks that the EU law will have the opposite effect to me, but the same as no law at all in the US! Here’s what he said to Mark Mardell;

…almost 200,000 people’s jobs in the UK depend on car manufacturing and already we’ve seen cutbacks in production in August. I know the figures in September are even worse, so it won’t be long before we see lay-offs. We have to be very careful. The vote today makes lay-offs, a loss of jobs more likely, there’s no question…(my emphasis)

There’s no question that it’s a twattish fear inducing statement from a twat! This is being disingenuous with the facts of the current economic slowdown, in the least!

I’ve talked at length this summer about the economic realities of large car production in the US. It’s even more real now. The (mainly German) large car makers should get real now, making cars that people want and will use. US market forces deem the same will happen in Europe as has happened in the US, but they choose to ignore them. Fair play to our EU for trying to wake them from their slumber before they too, end up like the US car giants.

Some previous articles by me are below chronicling the above statements:

easter-island-modern-history-in-miniature

nutters-in-the-sky-nutters-on-the-ground

how-the-uk-is-fortunate-to-be-protected-by-having-high-road-fuel-taxes

cause-and-effect-with-world-fuel-prices

ford-cuts-suvs-now

are-people-herding-sheep-or-hoarding-chipmunks-or-ravenous-hyenas

finally-a-bit-more-on-the-air-powered-car-from-guy-negre

fuel-costs-red-herrings

another-american-gets-his-priorities-wrong