A statutory instrument to amend the Climate Change Act of 2008 to account for a net-zero target by 2050 will be laid in Parliament today (12 June), marking a first among the G7 nations. But what, exactly, happens next? Government plans will deviate from the CCC recommendations through the use of international carbon credits. It is also widely expected that the Government will not adopt the CCC’s recommendation of bringing its 2040 ban on new petrol and diesel car sales forward to 2035 or sooner. Moreover, most experts believe that the Government will not make any amendments to the upcoming fourth and fifth carbon budgets in order to spur faster progress towards the new 2050 goal. The UK is currently well off-track to meeting the targets laid out in these budgets, largely due to slow progress in decarbonising sectors such as transport and heat, and has, controversially, agreed to carry forward emissions reductions which have already taken place in a bid to rectify this trend. With all this in mind, edie explores the next steps which policymakers are set to take on the road to net-zero.
Edie 12th June 2019 read more »
An architect of the Paris climate agreement has praised Britain’s “historic commitment” to end carbon emissions by 2050. Laurence Tubiana, who helped to orchestrate the 2015 conference, said that Theresa May’s promise that Britain would produce net zero emissions within 30 years would “reverberate right around the world”. Similar pledges will be necessary from other countries to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, as was agreed at the summit in Paris. Ms Tubiana said she hoped that Britain’s commitment to the toughest climate change target of any advanced economy would encourage others to follow. “All eyes will now turn on the rest of the EU to match this pledge,” she told the BBC. She was among many environmentalists, campaigners and politicians to praise the move to make zero-carbon emissions a legally binding requirement.
Times 13th June 2019 read more »
Greenhouse gas emissions in the UK will be cut to almost zero by 2050, under the terms of a new government plan to tackle climate change. Prime Minister Theresa May said there was a “moral duty to leave this world in a better condition than what we inherited”. Cutting emissions would benefit public health and cut NHS costs, she said. Britain is the first major nation to propose this target – and it has been widely praised by green groups. But some say the phase-out is too late to protect the climate, and others fear that the task is impossible.
BBC 12th June 2019 read more »
“It’s a real shame the government hasn’t had the courage of its convictions,” says Caroline Lucas MP, former leader of the Green Party. She thinks the UK could reach “net zero” more quickly. She’s also criticised the government’s plan to reassess the target after five years – which could allow it to change or even drop its target.
BBC 12th June 2019 read more »
Leader: There are three reasons to believe that the target is realistic and the price bearable. First, the costs of hitting it are likely to fall over time as new technologies emerge. Britain has already made substantial cuts in emissions at a much lower cost than originally estimated. And the price of renewable energy is falling fast. The cost of energy generated by solar photovoltaics has dropped 90 per cent over the past decade. By planning now for an expansion in the use of renewables, electric vehicles and carbon capture and storage, the new target can be met. Second, the costs of achieving it needs to be weighed against the benefits, not least to public health. An estimated 40,000 lives are cut short by air pollution in this country every year, costing the economy £20 billion in healthcare and sick days. The forecasts of Public Health England are not unrealistic. If no action is taken, it calculates that air pollutants will cause 2.4 million new cases of disease over the next 16 years. Third, focusing on the costs ignores the opportunities that might accrue to Britain from global leadership in reducing emissions. New technologies in fields such as batteries, electric vehicles and fuel cells can support the creation of jobs. Adopting this target can generate growth by reducing productivity losses from pollution, improving energy efficiency and encouraging labour to acquire new skills. As a nation, Britain has little to fear and much to gain from a greener enterprise economy. As with any insurance policy, there is always going to be a cost. But with it comes peace of mind.
Times 13th June 2019 read more »
Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, said it was a “big moment” for the climate, but added there were “questions to be asked about (the) offsetting loophole”, seemingly in reference to the plan’s allowance for international carbon credits which allow the UK to pay to offset its emissions elsewhere in the world. Extinction Rebellion said “It’s like saying the house is on fire but we’ll invest in putting in sprinklers in thirty years,” he said. “What we need is to put out the fire now.”
The i News 12th June 2019 read more »
The government’s pledge to reach “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050 is not drastic enough, according to environmental campaigners. Craig Bennett, UK chief executive of Friends of the Earth, warned it was “still too slow to address catastrophic climate change”. He said the next prime minister must put carbon-cutting “at the centre of policy-making and pull the plug on plans for more roads, runways and fracking”. Professor Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College London (UCL), said Britain should adopt a 2030 zero carbon target. He said that if there was any chance of keeping the planet from warming more than 2C, the whole world must hit zero carbon emissions by 2050. Environment analyst Tom Burke said there was “quite a gap” emerging between announcements on climate change and the implementation of policies. Shadow energy secretary Rebecca Long Bailey raised concerns over how the commitment would be put into practice. “While this announcement is welcome in theory, in practice it comes from a Conservative government that is off track to meet existing climate targets, that has no plans for legislation or investment needed to cut emissions, and that has dismantled the UK renewable energy sector while pushing fracking,” she said.
Independent 12th June 2019 read more »
Our daily lives are set to change dramatically in the next three decades as the UK moves to cut greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050. The way our homes are heated, how we travel and what we eat will be transformed, according to the government’s expert advisory Committee on Climate Change. Millions of homes will have to switch to low-carbon heating before 2030, with heat pumps, district heating networks and hydrogen boilers replacing natural gas boilers, analysis has found. Homes could be fitted with “smart” systems to help control heat and power use, as well as improvements in insulation and double glazing, which would cut energy bills as well as reducing carbon emissions. Even the look of the countryside could change, with more trees and mixed farming replacing the monoculture landscapes of today. People will also need to eat less beef, lamb and dairy, use separate food waste collections and even switch to peat-free compost in their gardens to help cut emissions, the report from the Committee on Climate Change said.
Independent 12th June 2019 read more »
Telegraph View: Politicians are making a habit of introducing legally binding climate change targets that they then leave to others to deliver. As one of her “legacy” policies, Theresa May has authorised a new and binding 2050 carbon-free deadline which has had campaigners purring with delight. This is historic, they say. The UK is a beacon to the rest of the world. Reducing carbon emissions as part of global efforts to reduce warming is a legitimate policy that has seen considerable cuts in recent years and more investment in renewables. But as we shut down fossil fuel-burning industries and replace them with imported products, all we are doing is exporting those emissions to countries that are not making similar reductions if any at all. Globally, renewable energy has increased only marginally since world leaders attending the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 committed to tackling climate change. The UK is unlikely to meet the current target of 80 per cent cuts by 2030 yet is introducing an even more ambitious target which the Treasury estimates will cost £1 trillion. Supporters say this is a small amount annually when spread over 30 years, but it still represents a slow-down in economic growth about which they are not being entirely straightforward with the public. UN modelling suggests meeting the net zero carbon target by 2050 would cost 5.3 per cent of GDP – an annual cost of £187 billion for the UK assuming the policy’s efficient implementation. Other studies say it could be far higher without making a significant impact on global emissions. A better approach than setting impossible targets is to encourage investment in green energy research, development and new technologies.
Telegraph 13th June 2019 read more »
Cutting greenhouse emissions to ‘net zero’ as pledged by the government could require a tax on meat, flights and fuel, analysis by the London School of Economics (LSE) has shown. Analysts have advised unfreezing the fuel duty escalator which would add 10p per litre addition to fuel duty for drivers in 2020, rising to 14p per litre in 2050. The escalator was established under Tony Blair’s government as an environmental tax, but has been paused for the past nine years. Experts at the LSE also suggest a new tax on red meat and fertilisers which would see the price of beef ruse by 23p per kilogram of beef and 46p per kilogram of lamb in 2020, rising to 70p and £1.41 by 2050 respectively. Taxing aviation would also see the cost of long haul flights rising by 6.5 per cent which, equating to an increase of £33 from £527 in £560 for a flight from London to New York.
Telegraph 12th June 2019 read more »
Hammond’s 1 trillion bill for hitting net zero is innumerate nonsense. Chancellor Hammond’s leaked spoiler is a clutter of absurdities and category errors. It conflates spending with investment to come up with the outlandish tariff of £1 trillion. “It confuses costs that have a payback with those that don’t,” said Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. From what we know it assumes there will be no further falls in the cost of wind, solar, and renewable energy over the next thirty years, no falls in hydrogen costs from electrolysis, and no leaps in plant technology. This takes a brass neck. Photovoltaic costs have dropped by 83pc since 2010; offshore wind contracts are already coming in at £69 (MWh) for the early 2020s, 40pc lower than original estimates for 2030. LED lighting has jumped from 5pc to 40pc of the world market; electric vehicles have reached 50pc sales penetration in Norway – and this will turn into global cascade once EVs reach purchase cost parity in 2022. Mr Hammond writes in tones almost of surprise that there will have to be a ban of petrol and diesel cars by 2050 to meet the target. If the Treasury think such cars will still be legal in any European city much after 2030 they are living on another planet.
Telegraph 12th June 2019 read more »
What the 2050 zero carbon emissions target means for energy generation, transport and agriculture.
Telegraph 12th June 2019 read more »
The target is the most ambitious so far by any major western nation, requiring emissions from transport, industry and households to be completely stopped or offset by measures including tree planting. Turning Britain into a “net zero” emissions state will not be easy, but new technologies being developed in the UK could help. ‘Everyone is getting behind electric vehicles’ Questions persist over how “green” electric vehicles really are. After all, the electricity used to power them may still come from fossil fuels. They still create harmful dust, which comes off their brake pads and tyres as they drive. There is also a knock-on impact on communities where the lithium and copper needed to create the batteries is mined. Around 10pc of all emissions in the UK come from agriculture. The figure rises to 30pc when emissions from related activities such as cutting down trees to free up land are included. Up to now, the focus for companies in this space has largely been around helping farmers reduce their carbon footprint, but a new area of innovation has recently emerged which could have a huge impact. There are still interesting areas of technology that could help enhance the UK’s renewable capabilities. One is tidal power. According to government forecasts, tidal stream and wave energy could deliver a fifth of the UK’s current electricity, and it has been space where the Government’s research arm has been invested cash – in recent years, it has given funding to wave energy converter Zyba and a company developing floating tidal stream device, Instream.
Telegraph 13th June 2019 read more »
Young people will advise ministers on how the UK should meet the target of ending carbon emissions by 2050, to which Theresa May committed the nation on Wednesday. The commitment to net zero greenhouse gas emissions was described as “historic” by leading figures. But the UK is not yet on track to meet its 2025 and 2030 goals, so a huge transformation of energy, transport and buildings is urgently required. Thirty young people, aged 15-24, will assess how this should be done, starting in July. They will present their recommendations to ministers after the summer. The Youth Steering Group was founded in February to provide perspectives on all issues and has now been tasked with examining the climate, wildlife and plastic crises.
Guardian 12th June 2019 read more »
The net zero carbon target will require sweeping changes to almost every aspect of British life, affecting our homes, food and the way we get around, as well as jobs and businesses across the board. Ministers hope there will be health benefits and improvements to the natural environment along the way, as well as helping to stave off the global climate emergency. On some of the key areas where rapid change is needed, however, the signals so far have been mixed.
Guardian 12th June 2019 read more »
A Labour government would introduce an earlier net-zero carbon emissions deadline than the current 2050 target under plans being considered by the party leadership, according to shadow chancellor John McDonnell. In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr McDonnell said he was talking to experts about whether it would be possible to hit the target as early as 2030, as demanded by many left-wing activists.
FT 13th June 2019 read more »
In depth Q&A: The UK becomes first major economy to set net-zero climate goal. The CCC has previously highlighted the fact that almost all progress in cutting UK emissions has come from the power sector, whereas little headway has been made with heating and transport. This means the UK is set to miss its fourth and fifth carbon budgets for 2023-2032 by increasing margins, as shown in the chart, below. The scale of the challenge is magnified by today’s net-zero pledge. Nevertheless, the government has confirmed in a statement to Carbon Brief that it will carry forward 88m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) from the second to the third carbon budget, effectively weakening that target, which the UK is already on track to beat. Despite the decision to increase the third carbon budget by this amount, the government says it “has no intention of using this overperformance to meet Carbon Budget 3”. Instead, it hopes to “release” the 88MtCO2e at a later date.
Carbon Brief 12th June 2019 read more »
Tom Burke: How do we achieve the emissions target the UK government has set for 2050? We do it by putting our money where our mouth is, and by following through on this commitment to get the law in the right place by investing in the right things, and most importantly, above all, by investing in energy efficiency of our buildings, particularly our homes, because that will not only reduce our emissions, but it would also help get peoples bills down, and it will help reduce the burden on the health service of fuel poverty, because that makes it very difficult for older people to thrive. The government has got to set the lead and invest, and I think you will find that where the government first invests private money will follow behind it, so it’s not just going to be a big bill for the taxpayer or the consumer, but never the less, there will have to be some sort of contribution from all of us to solving this problem, it’s the biggest problem of our generation.
Radio5 12th June 2019 read more »
Is there a ‘giant hole’ in UK energy policy? Written evidence submitted by Professor Steve Thomas, Tom Burke CBE & Dr Paul Dorfman.
Parliament (accessed) 12th June 2019 read more »
