The UK Government has set targets to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by at least 12.5% by 2012 and 60% by 2050 compared with the baseline emissions of 1990. Compared with other countries these are very ambitious targets and provide international leadership in tackling global warming. It has also set policy aims to achieve significant cuts in GHG emissions by 2020. In the DEFRA Climate Change Review (2006) the policy projection was to achieve a cut in GHGs of ~20% by 2020. In the subsequent DTI Energy Challenge Report (2006) additional policies are estimated to add an extra 19.5-25.3 MtC savings which would achieve a total cut in GHG emissions of ~30% by 2020.

This report assesses the UK Government's current policies to reduce carbon emissions and the likelihood of achieving their stated targets and policy aims. First, the report provides a historic policy audit to assess whether Government policies have been able to reduce carbon emissions since their introduction. Second, the current portfolio of policies will be assessed in terms of whether they will deliver significant reductions in the future. The report focus' on the carbon reduction targets of the UK Government for 2012 and 2020. It reviews the four major sectors of Energy Supply, Business, Domestic and Transport. Minor sectors such as agriculture, forestry and land use changes and the public sector are not dealt with in this report as their contribution is small. In 2004 these sectors contributed less than 3% of the UK total carbon dioxide emissions. The major findings of this report are as follows:

article continues below...

1. UK GHG emission target of a 12.5% cut on the baseline levels required by the Kyoto Protocol by 2012 (~183 MtCe) could be achievable. UK GHG emissions in 2005 were 14.7% below 1990 levels (DEFRA 2007). However, the Government is aware that with continued significant economic growth the UK emissions will start to rise after 2010 and are implementing policies in the Energy Challenge Report (2006) to try to ensure this does not occur.

2. The audit notes that most of the carbon emission reductions to achieve the Kyoto Protocol targets were made in the 1990s with the change in industrial processes, waste management and a switch to natural gas from coal.

3. The major problem faced by Government policies is trying to reduce overall carbon emissions against a background of sustained and significant economic growth. For example there is predicted energy 'gap' of 25 GigaWatts which will be required by the UK in 2020, as well as the predicted huge growth in car usage over the next 13 years.

4. This report has assessed the likely success of each of the government policies and produced a possible range of GHG reductions for 2020 of between 29 to 17 MtCe for the four main sectors. This is significantly lower than predicted by the DEFRA Climate Change Report (2006) and DTI Climate Change Report (2006).

5. With present policies we suggest the Government's implied policy aim of cutting 2020 GHG emission by up to 30% compared with 1990 levels is very optimistic. This audit suggests current policies would achieve a GHG emission reduction of between ~12 and ~17% by 2020.

6. Despite all the complications within each sector reviewed, the over-riding reason for the possible failure of the current government policies to achieve their stated targets is that nearly all of them are voluntary. The DTI Climate Change Report (2006) implied policy aim of upto ~30% GHG reduction could be achieved if current policies were mandatory and new more prescriptive future policies were developed.

7. What this report can not yet assess is the impact of possible changing consumer habits. For example the media group BSkyB went carbon neutral in 2006 and two of the UK's large retailers Marks and Spencer and Tesco have recently announced that they will take their carbon emission seriously and make every effort to reduce them.

8. Government predictions concerning international aviation related to the UK suggest GHG emissions could rise to 14.9 MtC by 2020. This may be an optimistic figure as Bows et al. (2006) report suggests +17.3 MtC at their higher range. Note that GHG from international aviation are not included in our calculation above, National totals, Government and International targets.

Share this article

Send this article to a friend »