The report finds that the Government also increasingly `spins' targets and uses carbon dioxide emissions as an example. In the 1999 Pre-Budget Report the Government said it was going to: "reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2010." In 2003 this became an aspiration to "move towards a 20 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions below 1990 levels by 2010". In 2005: "UK carbon dioxide emissions will be about 14 per cent below the 1990 level, and emissions of all greenhouse gases will be around 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010."

Tara Singh explains: "The Government has a commitment to cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2010. It also has a separate commitment under the Kyoto Protocol to cut all Greenhouse Gases by 12.5% by 2012. This Government deliberately conflates the two in order to confuse the public into thinking the 20 per cent carbon goal is still well on track. Now the Government talks only of the much looser Kyoto Target."

The report concludes that targets are often set in the absence of a strong policy commitment to turn plans into action. The sheer number and complexity of targets also makes them easy to forget or miss and hence they lose much of their motivating force.

Tara Singh again: "There are too many, too complex targets without specific and attainable goals, set far in advance but measured continually. There also needs to be a more open and transparent approach to reporting. Our environment does not benefit just because a target is set, only when it is ambitious and is subsequently achieved."

And a note maybe worth pursuing:

Tara Singh is available for interview

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

This is the oldest game on the books. If an administration doesn't want to make unpopular decisions it creates a commission to "study" the issue. Then the report either gets ignored, or is transformed into legislation with an evaluation date far enough in the future that those avoiding the issue will have retired by then.

One can blame the politicians, but they are only reflecting the popular will. Show me the country where the general public is prepared to make enough sacrifice that the impact will be meaningful.

Even Al Gore, the guru of "realism", preaches a painless transition. Now if some of us could come up with a scheme that was only slightly painful and also had short term (as well as long term) benefits then we might be justified in criticizing those in power.

Personally, I can offer lots of scenarios which are going to turn out badly, but few that will turn out well. To take one popular issue in the US right now - exurban sprawl in the southwest. Short of depopulating the region there is nothing to be done. Building mass transit will only solve part of the problem since housing is spread over a wide area and the water shortage is intractable. Telling people they will have to move won't work. Allowing them to find out the hard way (see Detroit or other rust belt cities) seems the only path.

Those living in flood plains in Asia are even in a worse situation. There really is no place for them to go, the existing land is already overpopulated.

I'm at a loss. Jimmy Carter told people to put on a sweater and got booted out of office. Pols aren't prepared to make that mistake again.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

This is universal. It's the hyperbolic discount rate in action in politics.