Experts Say Carbon Cuts Are a Long Way Off Target

Aug 23 - The Journal - Newcastle-upon-Tyne

The Government is set to miss targets for increasing renewable energy and cutting carbon emissions by a wide margin, a report warns today.

Forecasts by Cambridge Econometrics suggest carbon emissions will be just 15% below 1990 levels by 2020 - far less than the 26-32% interim target proposed in the Draft Climate Change Bill.

The Joint Committee set up to examine the Bill recommended earlier this month removing the upper limit of 32%, and warned that the longer-term goal of achieving a 60% reduction by 2050 may not be enough to prevent dangerous levels of climate change.

But even achieving the minimum 26% cut by 2020 will be an uphill struggle unless this year's Energy White Paper is followed with robust policies to cut carbon, the authors of the UK Energy And The Environment report warned.

And the Government's longer-term goal of a legally binding 60% cut by 2050 is also at risk, the economic forecasters said.

It said that the UK would "comfortably" meet its Kyoto obligations of a 12.75% reduction by 2010, but it had become clear that CO2 emissions would not fall enough to meet the Government's target of a 20% cut by then.

Carbon emissions have not decreased in any year since 2002, but are expected to decline by around 1.75% per year between 2005 and 2010, if prices for EU emission trading scheme allowances recover as expected and cut coal-fired power generation.

Emissions from energy-intensive industry should drop around 3% a year, but increases are expected from air and road transport, the analysis said.

Today's report also reveals that renewable energy will make up just 5% of the UK's total electricity production by 2010 - half the 10% target.

But in the long-term renewable energy is projected to reach a 19% share of electricity provision by 2020, just 1% off-target, if demand grows as expected.

Report co-editor Prof Paul Ekins says: "These forecasts provide a reality check to the rhetoric on climate change that is now standard Government fare."