Power Generation

In just over a decade, the UK should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 21% compared with 2005 levels, according to new recommendation from the UK’s Committee on Climate Change.

The recommendation is just one of a number made in the Committee’s first report, Building a Low-Carbon Economy – The UK’s Contribution to Tackling Climate Change, launched today by chair Lord Adair Turner.

The Committee was set up in 2007 by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to advise the government on climate change. Its recommendation to increase the UK’s emissions target from a 60% cut to an 80% cut by 2050 has already been adopted by the government’s Climate Change Bill.

To achieve the UK’s target of an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 over 1990 levels, the Committee says the country has to focus on decarbonising electricity supply, which currently accounts for around 25% of emissions.

“Once we decarbonise electricity production, we can then apply electricity to new activities – for instance to road transport and to the heating of buildings,” says Turner.

The UK’s budget for emissions cuts should depend on whether or not a global deal is reached in Copenhagen in 2009, says the report.

If a global deal to cut emissions is reached next year, the UK should pledge to reduce emissions by 42% compared with 1990 levels by 2020 (equivalent to a 31% cut relative to 2005); regardless, the UK should unilaterally commit to a cut of 34% compared with 1990 levels by 2020 (equivalent to 21% relative to 2005).

However, the unilateral target of a 34% cut in emissions falls short of what environmental group Friends of the Earth was hoping for – unless international agreement is achieved.

“The committee should call for all UK greenhouse gas emissions to fall by 40% by 2020 – this is the size of reduction that experts say is required to avoid a climate disaster,” says executive director, Andy Atkins.

Environmental groups will also be sorely disappointed at the recommendation to exclude – at least initially – aviation and shipping from the targets.

Adair defended the Committee’s position, saying:
“It [is] difficult to include international aviation in the UK national budget without creating complex reconciliation problems which will impede rather than aid clear analysis of trends.”

There would also be major problems in trying to establish a UK- or Europe-only approach to shipping, he adds. A global deal is the only way forward, the report concludes.

The recommendations in detail:

• Reduce emissions from electricity generation 40% compared with 1990 levels by 2020. This would entail 30% of the country’s electricity from renewables – mainly wind, although the reduction could still be made with a lower proportion of renewables and a nuclear component;
• New coal-fired power plants should only be built if they can be retrofitted with carbon capture and storage systems by the early 2020s;
• Cut emissions from transport sector through the adoption of more efficient cars – and implementing the proposed EU target of 100 g per km for new cars by 2020.

According to the report, these changes should cost less than 1% of GDP by 2020. Estimates by the Committee put the figure at something in the region of 0.3-0.8%.

However, there will also be a cost for consumers. Without offsetting the costs of decarbonising energy supply, the Committe estimates the moving to a low carbon economy will push an additional 1.7 million into fuel poverty.

Energy efficiency measures such as better home insulation could help around 400,000 but the rest would have to be assisted through social tariffs and other measures.

The Government will give in-depth consideration to the new recommendations, says Ed Miliband, Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

“Plotting a course to a low carbon future here in the UK is vital if we are to reach our domestic goals and reach an international agreement. I am pleased to say that from 2009, carbon budgets will take their place alongside financial budgets and become pivotal to policy decisions within the UK.”

For further information:
www.theccc.org.uk
www.foe.co.uk