The UK parliament today agreed to commit to ambitious new carbon reduction targets while advisers warned that policy changes will be necessary if targets are to be met.
The acceptance of the fifth carbon budget will come as consolation to those concerned that the recent vote to leave the European Union could cast doubt on the government’s climate change commitments.
Following the announcement of the referendum result, energy secretary Amber Rudd assured that while “the UK’s role in dealing with a warming planet may have been made harder”, “the challenges remain the same” and “[the government’s] commitment also remains the same”.
Carbon Budgets
The ‘carbon budgets’ each represent steps necessary in order to meet the target contained in the Climate Change Act of an 80% reduction of emissions by 2050, based on 1990 levels.
The budgets, which are published by the Committee on Climate Change, an independent official advisory body to the government on the tenets of the CCA, each present steps to be taken for a four to five year period, in order to meet CCA targets.
The fifth carbon budget, which focuses on the period 2028-2032, contains particularly ambitious emissions reduction targets that far exceed those already set by the European Union.
Currently, EU climate regulations require member states to reduce their carbon emission by 40% by 2030 based on 1990 levels, while the fifth carbon budget sets a target reduction of 57% for the same year.
Commitment is Good, but Plans are Necessary
The formal commitment to this latest budget has been praised by green groups and spokespeople for the renewable industry, who have said that it goes some way to providing the clarity in government aims that, they say, has been severely lacking up until now.
Labour’s new shadow energy secretary, Barry Gardiner, also spoke positively of the agreement, praising Amber Rudd for her work in pushing it through, but argued that now, details of the government’s plan to meet the targets must be made public in order for support from, and investment in, the renewables industry to fully come to fruition. Further, he argued, some drastic policy changed are necessary if the target is to be considered at all realistic.
He said, of Rudd’s efforts, “I recognise the difficulties that the energy secretary has faced from many of her colleagues in simply securing this agreement, particularly in the aftermath of the vote to leave the EU.”
Greenpeace’s UK director, John Sauven, similarly praised the agreement while making it clear that far from representing a complete victory, it merely marks a promise to start stepping in the right direction. Now, he argues, a roadmap toward that direction must be laid out.
Sauven said: “The government has kept its word to adopt this important target to limit the UK’s carbon emissions.”
Adding, however, that: “It’s no good having numbers on spreadsheets without the delivery to match. The absence of clear government plans and support for action on renewable energy, homes, cars, agriculture and planes shows how far the rhetoric of climate action has drifted from anything real.”
CCC Report
This assessment, that the targets set are positive, but that their achievement needs not only clear plans but also revisions to current policies, is shared by the Committee on Climate Change itself.
The CCC’s latest annual progress report praised recent drops in emissions, but much of this progress has been made in the power sector while, in transport and house building in particular, existing policies (and scrapped plans) have stymied progress.
The CCC’s chief executive, Matthew Bell, said: “Buildings are probably the biggest gap right now, where we called very clearly in 2015 for a new strategy for low-carbon heating and efficiency efficiency. The best way to keep consumers’ bills low and to tackle climate change is to make sure houses are properly insulated.”
Referring to the scrapping of a plan last year to make all new build homes carbon neutral, and that installation rates for energy saving insulation had fallen by nearly 90%, Bell said: “The last thing we need is to be building homes we know we are going to have to retrofit in 10-15 years time, because that will inevitably be more expensive.”
Bell also spoke of added difficulties post-brexit, saying: “What is undoubtedly the case is that a lot of the mechanisms we were using to tackle climate change were linked to the EU, like the EU emissions trading scheme that governs the power sector and heavy industry and emissions standards for vehicles. That is now thrown into doubt, and those were relatively efficient ways of trying to achieve emissions reductions.
“So the question is, post-Brexit, how do we ensure that we continue to be able to pursue climate change policies as efficiently as possible,”
Barry Gardner commented on the CCC’s claims, saying: “Today’s report sends a red alert that the Tories’ energy policies are dangerously inadequate and are sending the UK woefully off track to meet our climate targets. The Conservatives’ repeated attacks on clean energy over the past year have opened up a 50% shortfall to meet our carbon budgets beyond 2030.”
Another policy area that the CCC mentioned as having worked against positive progress was the controversial cancellation of the carbon capture and storage (CCS) competition last year. Development of CCS technology has long been described as an essential component of decarbonisation, while fossil fuel burning plants continue to run.
The CCC’s report described CCS as being “of critical importance to meet the UK’s climate targets at least cost, and requires a strategic approach to its development.”
