June 25: G7 plans to phase out fossil fuels, but what rest of world?

IT was recently announced in the Press that world leaders had agreed to phase out fossil fuels by 2100 and that these were “tough” measures to cut greenhouse gases, a move hailed ashistoric by some environmental campaigners.

Whether fossil fuels could, with clean-coal technology, provide us with cleaner energy than the energy policies we are forced to accept is, in this case, not being questioned, but what I do question is if the burning of fossil fuels is causing climate change, how can the abovemeasures be described as “tough” and historic?

World leaders have, in effect, said that fossil fuels can be used for a further 85 years, and this is called a tough decision and environmental campaigners call this historic.

If the use of fossil fuels is causing global warming and horrific pollution, 85 years of further use cannot, in my opinion, be described as a “tough” measure, nor is it worthy of any kind of celebration. To me, it just further illustrates the absurdity of energy policies.

But, just who are these world leaders? Were the leaders of the major polluters present at these discussions? Was China present? No, they were not there.

Perhaps another heavy polluter, India, attended? No, they too were absent, so no doubt Russia and all Asian countries took part?

No, nor Australia, nor African or South American countries.

The tough decision was made by just the members of the G7 group of countries: Canada, who are going to commission a thousand clean coal power stations by 2050, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the USA.

And China? Well she is commissioning a new dirtycoal power station every week, and will, in the next 85 years, produce frightening levels of CO2 emissions, a good deal of which will emanate from manufacturing goods cheaper than the West, due to the carbon taxes we have penalised our industries with.

From: Dr Paul Muller, Wakefield.

NUCLEAR energy is probably our only option for the whole world; but the building of a nuclear power station is very expensive in the use of carbon. In its lifetime, it will adequately repay the energy from carbon used in its production; and will continue to give us energy without carbon dioxide for many years to come.

The excess energy from nuclear power stations can also be used to produce more power stations, and to get rid of the spent fuel rods.