Somerville, Peter (2020) The continuing failure of UK climate change mitigation policy. Critical Social Policy . ISSN 0261-0183
Full content URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018320961762
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The continuing failure of UK climate change mitigation policy revised July 2020.docx - Whole Document 77kB |
Item Type: | Article |
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Item Status: | Live Archive |
Abstract
Failure to take climate change seriously enough has resulted in the world now facing a climate emergency, with rising global temperatures, melting polar ice caps, increasingly frequent and severe storms, floods and droughts, and rising sea levels. Despite being the first country in the world to set statutory carbon emissions reduction targets (in the Climate Change Act 2008), the UK government since 2012 has fallen increasingly behind, even by its own standards. This paper details what this has meant in terms of specific policies and identifies some of the reasons for this policy failure: in particular, a negative attitude towards regulation and a return to a reliance on market forces, plus an overriding concern to continue with ‘business as usual’, in terms of support for fossil-fuel industries and ever-increasing energy demand and supply. Ironically, this has resulted in a situation where radical solutions seem even more necessary and more urgent.
Keywords: | decarbonisation, global emergency, green new deal |
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Subjects: | L Social studies > L410 UK Social Policy |
Divisions: | College of Social Science > School of Social & Political Sciences |
ID Code: | 42523 |
Deposited On: | 06 Oct 2020 11:17 |
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