Apply the lessons of the past decade, or risk a poor deal for the public in the next

Committee on Climate Change 28 June 2018

Ten years after the Climate Change Act came into force, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says the Government must learn the lessons of the last decade if it is to meet legally-binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the 2020s and 2030s. Unless action is taken now, the public faces an unnecessarily expensive deal to make the shift to a low-carbon economy. Scientific evidence of a changing climate continues to mount. Recent observations have catalogued evolving changes to the climate in the UK and around the world, highlighting the urgent need for further measures to reduce harmful emissions.

Overall, UK emissions are down 43% compared to the 1990 baseline while the economy has grown significantly over the same period. Since 2008, the UK has seen a rapid reduction in emissions in the electricity sector, but this achievement masks a marked failure to decarbonise other sectors, including transport, agriculture and buildings. In the last five years, emissions reductions in these areas have stalled. As a result, the UK is not on course to meet the fourth (2023-2027) or fifth (2028-2032) carbon budgets. Nor will it be on course unless risks to the delivery of existing policies are reduced significantly and until Government brings forward effective new policies to deliver commitments beyond the achievements in electricity generation and waste.

The next year is crucial. In January, the Committee commended the ambition of the Government’s Clean Growth Strategy, but found few new detailed policies to reduce UK emissions into the next decade and beyond. Five months on, policy details are still largely absent, and we haven’t yet had the Department for Transport’s ‘Road to Zero’ strategy, delayed from its planned publication in March. It is in this context that the Committee’s new report ‘Reducing UK emissions – 2018 Progress Report to Parliament’ sets out four key messages to Government to put emissions reductions on track, based on the lessons of the last decade. Click here to read more