GHG Daily Monitor Vol. 1 No. 77
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April 28, 2016

U.K. MPs Set Recommendations for Fifth Carbon Budget

By ExchangeMonitor

A British Parliamentary committee on Wednesday supported an advisory panel’s recommendation for future carbon emissions reductions while offering some suggestions of its own, including targeting aviation emissions for cuts.

The 2008 Climate Change Act requires the United Kingdom to by 2050 slash carbon emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels. Toward this, the government is establishing a set of five-year “carbon budgets,” or maximum allowable emissions levels. Four carbon budgets have been instituted to date, through 2027. The fifth budget would cover the period from 2028-2032.

In a new report, the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee concurred with the November 2015 recommendation from the independent Committee on Climate Change that the fifth carbon budget be set at 1,765 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, which would encompass 40 MtCO2e from international shipping. That would be down from 1,950 MtCO2e in the fourth carbon budget.

“Should the Government deviate from the CCC’s advice on the level of the fifth carbon budget, we will be looking carefully for a robust evidence-base on any alternative level proposed,” the committee said in its report. The MPs also noted that while the nation appears ready to meet the demands set by the first three carbon budgets, the results for the fourth remain in doubt.

The Energy and Climate Change Committee, among a number of recommendations, also called on the government to work with partner nations to develop “an agreed international mechanism for controlling international aviation emissions” and to further study what emissions levels might be necessary toward the target laid out in the Paris climate change accord to restrict global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“We can see no basis for downgrading the UK’s ambition to reduce emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases,” Energy and Climate Change Committee Chairman Angus MacNeil said in a prepared statement. “Indeed, to meet targets agreed at the Paris climate talks to keep temperature rises below 1.5 degrees, we may in the future need to cut emissions deeper and faster.”

In addition, according to the committee report, “The Government should set a power sector carbon intensity target of 100 gCO2 / kWh for 2030 to provide the investment certainty needed.”

“Uncertainties about the UK’s share of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) cap for the period of the fifth carbon budget result in uncertainties in the share of the budget for the non-traded sectors such as heat, transport and buildings,” the report says. “We support the CCC’s approach to dealing with the problem, that is to fix the net carbon budget for the traded sector at 590 MtCO2 e over 2028–2032, thereby limiting emissions for the non-traded sector. However this support is conditional on Government clearly explaining how any discrepancies will be dealt with once the UK’s share of the EU ETS cap is known.”

The U.K. government has said it will release its new emissions reductions plan before the close of 2016.

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