Kyoto fading into polluted air

THE Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions has always been about politics as much as climate control. For many in Europe, the treaty - which lays down legally enforceable targets for cutting pollution - has been a rod with which to beat the Bush administration in America for selfishness in not adhering to the Kyoto rules. However, as the clock ticks towards the 2012 delivery date, it looks increasingly as if the EU will not meet its own Kyoto targets.

According to a new report from the Blairite Institute for Public Policy Research, at least ten out of the 15 EU signatories to Kyoto could miss their individual targets, including Spain, Italy, Germany and France. This finding complements a recent official report from the European Environment Agency which stated that greenhouse gas emissions in the pre-2004 EU member states last year were only 1.6 per cent below the 1990 base-year level. This means the EU is only a fifth of the way towards achieving its Kyoto targets.

The causes of this failure are various. Some countries, such as Greece, made no great political effort to meet Kyoto while happily denouncing the White House for its sins. Some, like Spain, have seen unexpectedly high levels of industrial growth, with a resulting increase in emissions. It did not occur to the Spanish to forgo their economic growth, though the present Spanish government continues to chide the United States for doing the same. Others, like France, have just found it difficult to persuade their citizens to change their lifestyles fast enough.

But not to worry: Europe still plans to get round this little local difficulty with Kyoto. At the 1995 Berlin Climate Change Convention, signatories approved the EU's unique "burden-sharing" plan. This lets the EU meet a single overall target of 8 per cent for cutting emissions, with individual members spreading the burden of compliance between them. And guess who is carrying the burden?

Only a few EU countries are scheduled to hit their individual Kyoto targets, primarily Britain. In the ten years after the 1990 base year, the UK switched from burning coal to generate electricity to burning cleaner gas, cutting emissions substantially. In addition, the Blair government volunteered extra cuts in order to meet a 20 per cent reduction in emissions. This is now seen to be too ambitious. But the more the UK succeeds in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the easier it will be for the rest of the EU to renege on theirs, as UK success legally offsets EU failure.

The EU still has six years to fulfil the demands of the Kyoto Protocol. It is high time it started trying to deliver. Pollution control is too serious for political grandstanding.

Red light on police speeding

POLICE officers routinely exceed the speed limit when answering 999 calls. This is understandable where life and safety are involved. However, this is very different from having a blanket rule to excuse any incident of speeding on duty.

Last month, official figures were released showing that a record number of people were killed in road accidents involving police cars in 2004, with 44 dead compared with 36 in 2003. It is in no-one's interest if the public feels that giving officers too much latitude in speeding is leading to carelessness or even bravado.

This concern has been underlined with new information released under the Freedom of Information Act detailing incidents of police speeding. This shows a total lack of consistency by the police forces concerned. For example, in Lothian and Borders, 2,272 marked cars triggered cameras last year, the fourth highest incidence in the UK. No action was taken against any officer. Meanwhile, in Dumfries and Galloway, with a police force one-sixth the size of Lothian and Borders, 15 officers were fined for speeding.

A national set of rules is required governing the circumstances in which police can or cannot break the speed limit. And Lothian and Borders Police has to realise there is a public confidence issue and justice has to be seen to be done.

The best and worst of the BBC

THE BBC is holding another of its ubiquitous competitions. We have voted for the greatest Briton of all time (answer: Winston Churchill). Radio 4's flagship Today programme is currently asking us "Who rules Britain?" (probable answer: John Humphrys). Now Aunty Beeb is polling the nation on who is the worst Briton of all time (vote at bbchistorymagazine.com .

As always with these competitions, Britain is taken to mean the geographical British Isles even before the Union of the Parliaments in 1707, so bad Scots do stand a chance. There is scope for somebody nominating King Macbeth (for regicide), John Knox (a hero to many but with a decidedly non-modern view of a woman's role in government), Sawney Bean (who anticipated Hannibal Lecter's eating habits), Burke and Hare (Scots by adoption but the first serial killers), the eighth Earl of Elgin (who ordered the destruction of the Summer Palace at Bejing, a serious act of cultural vandalism), or Tony Blair (something of everything if his critics are to be believed).

Of course, the only real candidate for the worst Briton is the person who first thought up these totally pointless and silly competitions in order to fill dead air time.