Amid growing concerns over the impact of the financial crisis on the development and deployment of renewable and advanced energy technologies, the UK government has reaffirmed its commitment to a low carbon economy.
The country’s minister for climate change and energy Ed Miliband has announced that the government intends to increase the target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from 60 to 80 per cent on 1990 levels by 2050. It also intends to introduce a feed-in tariff to support small scale renewable energy.
The announcement comes as European Union leaders agreed to stick to their greenhouse gas emission reduction plans in spite of demands by Poland and six other member states to drop them in the face of the global credit crunch.
The UK’s proposed new greenhouse gas reduction target is the most ambitious in the world and will not only help the UK make the transition to a low carbon economy, but also show that it “would be quite wrong to row back” on environmental commitments in “tough economic times”, says Miliband.
The target will not include emissions from aviation or shipping.
The government plans to make the target binding in law by amending legislation currently being debated. It has based its policy on a new report presented to Miliband’s newly-created department by the Climate Change Committee.
“Arctic sea ice has melted faster than expected. Global emissions have grown faster. And the impacts of each degree of climate change are known to be worse,” said Miliband. “To hold global warming to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, commonly accepted as the threshold for the most dangerous changes in the climate, global emissions must fall by 50-60 per cent by 2050.
“[The report] concluded that for Britain to play its proper part the UK should cut our emissions not by 60 per cent but by 80 per cent … the target should apply not just to CO2, but to all six of the Kyoto greenhouse gases.”
The government is planning to bring an amendment to the Energy Bill to give small-scale electricity guaranteed prices. This, it says, will complement the renewables obligation, which supports large-scale projects.
It also believes that renewable energy can play an increased role in heating.
“Heating produces almost half of Britain's carbon emissions, and cleaner sources of heat can help us meet our target in 2050 and the milestones on the way,” said Miliband. “I’m clear we need to make rapid progress on this too and will make further announcements soon.”
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