Kissinger and the Pot Thief

Testing The Register's hypothesis

I think it was in "Years of Upheaval" that Henry Kissinger compared Le Duc Tho to a thief's defense council: his client didn't steal anything, it certainly wasn't a pot, and anyway it wasn't black. This (characteristically self-serving) anecdote came to mind on reading this article in The Register. 

The UK's climate act is "all but certain to fail" and alternative approaches should be considered, according to a new study. The act commits the UK to cut its CO₂ emissions by a third in just 13 years, and by 80 per cent by 2050.
Roger Pielke Jr is a professor at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and a visiting professor at University of Oxford's Said Business School who has accepted the case for cutting carbon emissions. However, in a new journal article he says the Act is unrealistic, setting symbolic and therefore meaningless targets instead of practical policy.

Sadly, The Register doesn't link to the actual paper, which you can read here. 

I'm agnostic on the Climate Change Act (I simply don't have the economic background to have an informed view; it's a wise man who knows what he doesn't know) but Roger Pielke's name seemed awfully familiar. Perhaps it was from here:

"I honestly don't know what the proper test is" 

or perhaps it was here  or here .

Anyhoo, I think if we are going to be advised on meeting targets, it would be better if our advisers knew how to do a hypothesis tests.