Ever reducing emissions

Right, so here's the score, at least according to Mayer Hillman, whose book 'How we can save the planet' is a shocking primer on the science, policy debates and current calls to action surrounding climate change.

Apparently, if we are to stablise carbon emissions at what's currently thought to be the maximum safe limit (that's 450ppm atmospheric concentration), a level recently articulated by the Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change conference, and we aim to reduce emissions so that our emissions converge upon those of the developing world by 2030, a timeline proposed by Hillman, then in the UK, individual carbon emissions need to fall from 10.4tCO2 average in 2005 to 2.1tCO2 average by 2050. OK? Got that?

Well if you have, you're following better than me. Putting aside awkward questions about whether we're talking individual emissions or household emissions, whether you count kids or not, what you include in calculating any of the above and whether emissions I produce in the course of my work count as personal or household or not at all, the one thing that is clear is that the necessary trend is sharply downwards, for ever and a day.

Striking a straight line on a piece of graph paper, and following Hillmans proposed trajectory, I reckon to do our bit, if we were good global citizens with average emissions, we would need to reduce our contribution to the problem from 10.1tCO2 at the start of 2006 to 9.8t by the time we next say Happy New Year, although quite how happy the washingqueen would be if we did that remains to be seen.

The bottom line is we need to shed 300kg of emissions per year, which doesn't sound so hard. That's only 25kg per month. Just 25 bags of sugar or a trade size bag of builders sand. Each and every month. For the next 25 years, until our emissions converge with those of the developing world, about the time I'm due to retire. Then, post retirement, things seem to get a little easier; according to Hillman, post 2030 convergence we can ease off and shed just a further 50kg a year for the next 20 years until by the time I'm 86 my emissions will hopefully be just 20% of what they should be today. Now there's a retirement to look forward to.

It all boils down to something like a 3% per year reduction in emissions, if you start from the UK average. And this happens to be the same amount that the environmental pressure groups are lobbying the UK government to commit to as an annual emissions reduction target. So, if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

There's just one small thing niggles me though, the fact in our household we seem to be starting from above average emissions, so perhaps we need to be aiming a little higher, to trim a little more? I feel a meeting with the washingqueen coming on to negotiate targets. If you thought the Kyoto negotiations sounded tricky, watch this space.