Glasgow courts business, Edinburgh shrugs \u2014 will the city pay? | The Herald<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n \u201cThe unique composition of Edinburgh\u2019s built environment also presents a challenge to decarbonisation,\u201d it said. \u201cWith approximately a quarter of Scotland\u2019s protected historic domestic building stock in-use, Edinburgh presents limits to the technical applicability of many cost-effective energy-efficiency and energy production technologies,\u201d they observed, predicting that even if the city collectively threw the kitchen sink at upgrading every house and ignored the ruinous cost, overall domestic carbon emissions would only be halved, not eradicated. Cost-effective measures by 2030 would be over 60 per cent short.\n<\/p>\n
\n None of the other sectors – transport, industrial and commercial – was anywhere near on a cost-effective basis, and only commercial got close, with a possible 96 per cent reduction by 2037 if expense was ignored, which in a commercial environment simply wasn\u2019t going to happen. But no, it was all deemed possible by the cheat of offsetting, which would have meant planting a forest about the size of Siberia to compensate.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe predict that to meet its carbon reduction target for 2030, Edinburgh would have to at a minimum exploit the full technical potential of all of the energy efficiency and low-carbon options identified in this report, and also hope that a significant number of new options become available before 2030,\u201d said the academics. Relying on yet-to-be-invented solutions was some hope.\n<\/p>\n
\n ![]()
(Image: AlbertPego)\n<\/p>\n
\n Admittedly I\u2019m a cynic, so how has it all worked out? For climate alarmists, a report to this Tuesday\u2019s policy and sustainability committee will make sobering reading, and I can already hear the Conservative group leader Iain Whyte telling the meeting he told them so six years ago.\n<\/p>\n
\n It reveals that since 2005, Edinburgh has reduced overall emissions by 48 per cent, two below the \u201ccore cities\u201d average, not too bad and at current rates the city will have reduced emissions by between 59 and 61 per cent by 2030. A creditable effort indeed, but 40 per cent shy of 2019\u2019s ludicrous target which has driven so many unpopular policies like the city mobility plan and the low traffic neighbourhoods.\n<\/p>\n
\n And sure enough, net zero by 2030 is still the main justification for spending \u00a33billion on two new tram lines, around the same amount it is estimated that transitioning the city\u2019s heat sources away from gas will cost. It\u2019s \u00a36bn the city simply doesn\u2019t have, but cue catastrophists wailing that Edinburgh can\u2019t afford not to spend that sort of money.\n<\/p>\n
\n An extensive background paper gives detailed explanations of the many \u201cchallenges\u201d which the 2030 policy has faced, all of which can be summed up as \u201cunachievable in the first place\u201d and with considerable understatement the report concludes, \u201cthere are reputational risks associated with citywide emissions not reducing at a pace that will achieve the political 2030 net zero target.\u201d But there\u2019s no reputational risk for those who from the outset said it was bonkers.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u00b7 Councillor Jane Meagher, condemned to lead a ramshackle administration when she\u2019d rather be at choir practice, can barely get through a week without some new crisis emerging from the downfall of her shamed predecessor Cammy Day.\n<\/p>\n
\n Now she\u2019s trying to sack her housing convener, the veteran Labour councillor Lezley Cameron, for suggesting, with some justification, that the council\u2019s policy of forcing housing developers to make 35 per cent of new homes affordable is a disincentive when the city needs all the houses it can get.\n<\/p>\n
\n And again, not without reason, Cllr Cameron jibbed out of obeying the whip at the last full council meeting to vote herself off the policy and sustainability committee to make way for Cllr Day. So presumably at the next full council meeting on October 30 Cllr Camerson will be expected to vote herself out of a job on the housing committee as well, or face suspension.\n<\/p>\n
\n Poor old Calamity, it never gets any easier. And maybe Cllr Day will become an advocate for the Scottish Conservatives<\/a>\u2019 Right to Rehab bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the past, according to author LP Hartley, is a foreign country where they do things differently, then…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-508951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115394185988401745","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}