STEP BY STEP, EUROPE MOVES AWAY FROM BINDING TARGETS

Green groups raise fear over 2014 review of EU renewables targets - 30 Oct 2008 - BusinessGreen

European member states have proposed amendments to the EU's renewable energy directive that critics claim will water down the legislation and potentially damage investor confidence in the sector. [Via Benny Peiser]

Patrick Michaels: Global Warming Fantasies Meet Financial Contraction

Whoever is elected president, global warming legislation is going to be passed in Washington next year.

Legislation proposed by both John McCain and Barack Obama will require that the cost of energy to become so high that people will avoid using it. The serious question is: why would we do this in the current economic environment? Why would we take away capital that people would otherwise use to invest in companies that produce efficient things when that capital is already being destroyed at an alarming rate?

Other nations that embraced the abject environmental failure known as the Kyoto Protocol and imposed higher energy costs are fleeing from climate change policies as their economies implode. Only the U.S. seems eager to commit economic suicide over global warming.

Kyoto did nothing measureable about climate change. Global carbon dioxide emissions rose by the same amount they were supposed to fall because of it. All it cost was money. Germany ‘s Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is probably the woman most responsible for the Protocol itself, now calls drastic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, "ill-advised climate policy". Her foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who last year trotted the globe pronouncing global warming a grave threat to world peace, now says that "this crisis changes priorities" and that "interest in protecting the climate will change because of such a crisis".