FactCheck: have UK emissions really gone down?

Updated on 01 February 2008

By Channel 4 News

Defra reckons the UK is in a good position to exceed its Kyoto Protocol commitment.

The background

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions is central to international efforts to combat climate change. To this end, the UK is signed up to the Kyoto protocol, which binds us to cutting emissions to 12.5 per cent of their 1990 levels by 2012.

The government also has its own, stricter C02 emission-reduction targets - by 20 per cent of 1990 levels by 2010 - though these look unlikely to be met.

Official figures released yesterday were heralded by the Government as showing Britain was on the right lines, with 2006's greenhouse gas emissions down 0.5 per cent on the previous year.

Carbon dioxide emissions, which often come in for particular scrutiny - as they make up 85 per cent of the mix - went down by 0.1 per cent.

But green campaigners claimed the figures were misleading, as they ignore emissions from international flights, which are increasing. Aviation also has extra adverse environmental effects because of the high altitude at which fuel is burned.

Indeed Friends of the Earth got its retaliation in early, issuing a press release stating: "Government figures to be released today will not show Britain's real carbon dioxide emissions."

So how useful are the government's headline figures - and how would they be different if aviation was included?

The analysis

As judged by the targets, the UK's total greenhouse gas emissions tot up to 652.3 million tonnes in 2006 - down from 655.5 million tonnes in 2005 (the 0.5 per cent decrease).

Although the target figures include domestic flights, the "missing figures", for international flights, are measured by looking at the amount of fuel used by aircrafts refuelling at UK airports.

These greenhouse gas emissions were 35.956 million tonnes - up from 35.419 million in 2005, or a 1.5 per cent increase.

These figures measure air traffic in the UK rather than distinguishing between UK and non-UK planes or passengers - so how useful are they for setting UK targets?

There may be some quirks in the way that different airlines use fuel - for example, low-cost airlines may carry extra fuel to reduce the amount of time they have to spend refuelling after a short-haul flight, but it gives a reasonably accurate measurement of UK air traffic - and has implications for UK policy.

"It's important when you look at things like whether we should build an extra runway at Heathrow," said Victoria Williams, a transport researcher at Imperial College. "If Heathrow becomes more of a hub airport, passengers wouldn't necessarily be stopping and benefiting the economy."

So what happens if we add the "missing" international aviation emissions to the government's UK total?

Overall, the total emissions for this year would be 5.5 per cent higher than the figure the government declared yesterday if aviation was included.

And although the total figures would be still be down on last year, the decrease would be 0.38 per cent rather than 0.5 per cent.

You may start to wonder how much this matters - when we're dealing with millions of tonnes of gases, small percentage rises might start to seem like small change.

But behaviour now has important implications for the future. "Emissions now affect the environment for 100 years - so it makes sense to reduce things now rather than trying to reduce them more later," said Alice Bows, a core researcher at the Tyndall Centre.

"It's ridiculous that we don't include aviation emissions in the total," she added. "It's important for people to know the true figure - individuals might change their behaviour."

There's one other set of "missing" data to throw into the mix - international shipping emissions. These are also calculated by looking at bunker fuel, although the quantities are smaller than for aviation. But they are far trickier to track, as ships are far more likely than aircraft to make detours to take cheap fuel. It's likely these underestimate the impact of Britain's shipping, according to Bows.

And shipping emissions dropped between 2001 and 2005, they then increased from 5.905 million tonnes to 6.861 million tonnes in 2006 - creating further worry for environmental campaigners.

FactCheck rating: 2.5

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The sources

Defra stats
UK emissions figures down, but "much more must be done": Benn
CO2 emissions higher than Government admit, Friends of the Earth, January 31 2008
Greenhouse gas emissions arising from use of fuels from UK 'international bunkers'
Factcheck: How green is EasyJet

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