If Greenpeace can lie this easily, why should I believe it on any subject?

By Daniel Hannan, UK Daily Telegraph Ruth Davis, the senior policy adviser at Greenpeace UK, is quoted in The Guardian about the deferral of a vote in the European Parliament on whether to increase the EU’s emissions reduction target from 20 to 30 per cent. Here is what she says:

This vote was postponed after the prime minister personally intervened so that those opposing a higher climate target could no longer count on the support of his party. The politicians backing dirty industries realised they would lose in their bid to scupper moves towards a greener Europe, and they had no option but delay.

Her statement is – there is no way of putting this gently – a lie. The reason the vote was delayed is that the voting session had overrun, and some MEPs wanted their lunch. The postponement was approved on a free vote. From where I was sitting, it looked as though just over half the British Tories voted to carry on with the session. Frankly, though, MEPs didn’t vote on Left-Right lines so much as on the basis of whether they were in danger of missing their flights.

CO2 tumbling down

Source: Ecotretas Once upon a time, carbon trading was supposed to be the salvation for Earth's climate problems. But as time went on, people started realizing that something was wrong. As usual, financial markets anticipated the move. Late last year, US carbon trading crashed. Two weeks later, it closed. In Europe, the price of CO2 emissions even flourished earlier this year. The European Union pushed for stronger policies towards renewables. And Fukushima pressed German's chancellor Angela Merkel to abandon nuclear, with some imagining that renewables would fill in the gap.

EU carbon: a zero-sum game?

By Giles Parkinson, Climate Spectator Just as the federal government prepares to announce details of its carbon pricing regime in the next week or two, the European emissions trading scheme is lurching through another crisis. Or should that be crises? The European carbon price has plunged dramatically in the past month, with an 11 per cent slump on Friday to €12, extending a 30 per cent slump in previous sessions. It is now at its lowest levels in more than two years. It’s been caused by a confusion of seemingly separate but ultimately interrelated factors: The Greek debt crisis and the threat of another European-wide recession; the failure to agree on more ambitious emissions reductions targets; a massive overhang of free permits; a major spat between Europe, China and the US over the inclusion of non-EU airlines in the European ETS; and the proposed introduction of new energy efficiency targets.

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