Lib Dem Solution to Carbon Emissions

I have blogged before on Brent Liberal Democrats lack of ambition in cutting the Council's carbon emissions, for example here and here and here. Brent Council has signed up to the 10:10 pledge, but it turns out that they have a rather odd way of meeting the pledge.

Council documents reveal that Brent Council expects to cut its emissions by 3% during 2010. That is, if you count emissions from all the Council. Roughly half of the 6,000 people employed by the Council are employed by schools. Brent Liberal Democrats have decided that they will meet the 10% target by only counting non-school emissions. Since the schools have seen emissions rising fast over the past few years, ignoring them makes it much easier to "cut" Council carbon emissions.

Of course, one could extend this logic further. Brent Liberal Democrats could probably get an even bigger cut by excluding bits of the non-school parts of the Council. Brent Liberal Democrats could further improve the Council's carbon emissions to exclude both school and non-school emissions. Since this would take out all the Council's operations, this would mean that Brent Council could become the UK's first zero emissions authority.

Of course, many members of the public might have a less imaginative view of emissions than the Lib Dems. They might think that excluding the bits of the Council that had the fastest growing emissions, and claiming that this showed a "cut" in emissions was a complete con.