DESPITE a year of butchering the UK renewables industry and undermining energy-efficiency measures, David Cameron is still trying to fool the British public and, indeed the delegates in Paris, regarding his vow to lead the “greenest government ever” – a phrase he used first back in May 2010 when the Coalition government was being formed.

The UK Government claims that it is on track to meet its climate change target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.

It claims that emissions at present are 36 per cent below 1990 levels and that this is evidence of its green credentials.

This figure, incidentally, does not include aircraft emissions that have increased exponentially since 1990. The problem for this government is that very little of this reduction was due to the impact of renewables. Most of it is due to a switch from coal to gas and a decline in output from heavy industry.

The large drop in emissions in 2014 was due to less coal being burned because of the mild winter.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) (an independent organisation which advises the UK and devolved governments on climate change) indicated in its annual report that the UK is not on course to meet its targets after 2020. In addition, the EU has warned that we are not on track to get 15 per cent of our energy from renewables by 2020.

The dreadful irony of the UK Government’s position is that it can now only meet emissions targets by relying on global warming and the malaise affecting British manufacturing.

It has set itself against the recommendations of the CCC such as encouraging investment by extending some subsidy schemes, maintaining support for electric cars and implementing the zero-carbon homes plan. A looming problem for this government is that its own targets are enforceable through the 2008 Climate Act and it is inevitable that it will find itself in the dock, as it already has been, in its failure to control air pollution. What are the government’s options? It could do a U-turn and reverse its onslaught on environmental policies. It is more likely though, that the government will simply change the rules of the game and repeal the Climate Act.

An exit from Europe would precipitate this move since, as a member state, it is still legally bound to increase renewables and cut emissions. Still, we will always have Paris. But with this Government’s record who would put money on it?

Gordon Murray
Lanark

THE Paris Climate Change Summit has just finished with apparent agreement on carbon release limits. I wonder if attention was paid to three massive contributors to carbon release. Firstly, the massive felling and burning in the Amazon forest with the additional massive loss of the uptake capacity of CO2 by growing trees. All to get cheap soya. Secondly, the similar felling and burning of the rainforest with the additional massive release of the CO2 locked in the underlying peat. All to get cheap palm oil.Thirdly, has any account has been taken of the massive release of CO2 occurring due to the current military activity?

Evan Lloyd
Edinburgh

Some Calvinists really were the extremists of the ‘killing times’

I READ with interest the letters in yesterday’s paper and some of the responses to Chris Bambery’s article on the Calvinists in the 16th century. I thought it was a very good piece and he was right to make some comparisons of the times and that some of these Presbyterians were extreme for the religious times.

There is no doubt that some of the work the Presbyterian church introduced in Scotland proved instrumental in forming the freedoms and education we all benefit from.

I think Mr Bambery was merely trying to put himself in the times and make a small comparison with now.

These times were not called "the killing times" for nothing – people did not understand the world they lived in and saw God as the answer to most things. We know differently now.

His article I am sure was not meant as a slight against current day Presbyterians or their history and he made a point that some of their views would have been seen as radical back in the day.

They were difficult times as God had a higher profile than now, and people took it seriously and had to take sides.

For instance, where I was brought up – Claverhouse – Bonnie Dundee was and is a hero but in the south west he was known as Bluidy Dundee.

Having been educated like most in the old Church of Scotland manner I always found it to be quite regressive in many ways and got out of it as soon as possible.

For me the whole thing was utterly joyles,s although I do believe it is more modern and uplifting now.

Thankfully today we have a society that is not dominated by religious doctrines as people are much better educated and less likely to allow themselves to be whipped up into an evangelical fury.

The Covenanters played their part in attaining these freedoms.

But let’s not forget they may well have been discriminated against but later on the Presbyterian church was not slow in discriminating against others.

Bryan Auchterlonie
Perthshire

I WRITE in reply to Jim MacKenzie’s letter about the Covenanters. The religious beliefs of Robert Burns have long provoked controversy among his admirers and detractors.

In his autobiography he wrote of having, “puzzled Calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion that I raised a hue and cry of heresy against me which has not ceased to this hour”.

In his poem The Kirk of Scotland’s Garland, stanza five reads:

"Calvin’s Sons, Calvin’s Sons, seize your spiritual guns –

Ammunition you never can need;

Your Hearts are the stuff will be Powder enough,

And your Sculls are a storehouse o’ Lead."

There is no suggestion that Burns could be regarded as an atheist except for a very brief period in early life when he “took the daring path Spinoza trod.”

My own opinion is that Thomas Crawford, in his excellent Study Of The Poems And Songs, (widely regarded as the best book on Burns ever written), got it just about right when he declared that Burns was “what would now be termed a mild agnostic.”

Norrie Paton
Campbeltown

HELP ma Bob, whit muckil stushie anent the Calvinist Daesh of Scotland. I write as a supporter of the Kirk of Scotland, a strong believer in Presbyterian church government and as one who has some leanings towards Calvinism. I am also very anti-Trot.

The Presbyterians of the 16th and 17th century in Scotland were not nice people.

They tried to supersede the civil government, they were intolerant, opinionated and in many cases quite savage.

The ministers attached to the Scottish army of General Leslie at the battle of Dunbar overruled one of Europe’s foremost generals and this led to the disaster of Dunbar.

There is reference to the phrase “the vomit of toleration”. After the battle of Philiphaugh, Presbyterian divines are recorded as urging the troops to kill prisoners and their wives.

The Scottish Presbyterians wished also to impose Presbyterianism on England, which led to a serious falling out with the English.

While all must be taken in the context of the times, the similarities to Daesh are there.

The Presbyterians of Scotland in those early times believed in Christ but had little understanding of Christianity.

R Mill Irving
Gifford, East Lothian


Letters: The new welfare system still leaves disabled and ill out in the cold