Archived press release

Government must set annual budget for carbon emissions

1 March 2005

The UK Government must set a strict annual budget for carbon dioxide emissions - with year on year cuts - or risk missing its targets for tacking climate change, Friends of the Earth said today. The call is part of the environmental campaign group's submission to the Government's review of its Climate Change Programme, which ends today (Wednesday) [1].

In its submission Friends of the Earth warns that unless the fight against global warming is managed on annual rolling basis, in a similar way to the management of the economy, the Government's climate strategy will continue to fail. Last year the Government said that its current climate strategy would fail to deliver the Government's manifesto commitment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2010 from 1990. It also admitted that it was only on course to achieve a 14 per cent reduction by 2010, and that carbon dioxide levels were currently still the same as they were when Labour came to power in 1997.

Friends of the Earth's Climate Campaigner Bryony Worthington said:

"The Government's current approach to climate change has been to introduce an incomplete and inconsistent policy package and then sit back, cross its fingers and hope. It is little wonder that the climate policy programme has failed to deliver any cuts in carbon dioxide. The Government must get serious about tackling climate change, set annual budgets for carbon dioxide, and commit itself to meeting them.

"With tougher policies the UK could be a world leader on tackling climate change. The Climate Change Programme review is a key opportunity to transform the Government's record on this issue, and to set out a blueprint for the rest of the world to follow."

Friends of the Earth has made eight policy recommendations to put the Government's climate strategy back on course and give Tony Blair's international leadership on climate change credibility:

1. Set a budget for UK carbon dioxide emissions and report on progress each year, including identifying additional measures it will take if it is not on track to meet year on year reductions.

2. Set targets for all sectors of the economy. Sector targets should cover surface transport, industry, power generation, aviation, commerce and the domestic sector.

3. A package of measures to reduce emissions from the power sector including using the second phase of the EU Emissions Trading Regime and tough regulatory limits on pollutants.

4. Introducing a `renewable heat obligation' to ensure that a growing percentage of energy for heat is provided from sustainable sources rather than fossil fuels.

5. Generating revenue for carbon reduction projects throughout the UK by reinventing the UK Emissions Trading Scheme, bringing in new sectors such as transport and commerce, and using carbon credit taxes.

6. Cutting emissions from transport through mandatory vehicle efficiency standards, higher taxes on gas guzzlers, support for renewable fuels and a levy on aviation.

7. Introducing an obligation on energy providers to deliver low cost ways of reducing overall energy demand from households.

8. Giving the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English Regions governments a duty to contribute to the target to reduce carbon dioxide emission by 20 per cent by 2010.

Notes

[1] Friends of the Earth's full response (PDF)

2. Tony Blair has previously described the threat of climate change as "so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence". He has promised to put it at the top of the international agenda this year during the UK Chairing of the G8 and Presidency of the EU.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust