The Committee on Climate Change, the independent, statutory body which advises the UK Government and Devolved Administrations, has published its 5th Carbon Budget.
The report presents the Committee’s advice on the fifth carbon budget, covering the period 2028-32, as required under Section 34 of the Climate Change Act 2008.
The Committee is recommending that the fifth carbon budget is set at 1,765 MtCO2e, including emissions from international shipping, over the period 2028-2032 – this would limit annual emissions to an average 57% below 1990 levels.
The Committee said this balances a range of factors they must consider, keeps the UK on its cost-effective path to the 2050 legislated commitment to reduce UK emissions by 80% on 1990 levels, and continues the UK’s historical rate of emissions reduction.
To date, in line with advice from the Committee, four carbon budgets have been legislated. The Government must legislate the level of the fifth carbon budget by June 2016 and will propose draft legislation in summer 2016.
The report says that to date, emissions reductions (beyond those resulting from general economic trends) have come from several sources. Energy efficiency has been improved in buildings and transport, while there has been a shift to lower-carbon fuels in electricity generation – namely natural gas and more recently renewables. There have also been reductions in non-CO2 gases, in particular because less waste has been sent to landfill.
In the Committee’s view, while these trends will continue to be important in future, they will not be enough to reach the 2050 target alone - meeting the fifth carbon budget will require progress in increasingly difficult areas. The Committee says they must also now be supplemented by more challenging measures, including switching to low-carbon energy sources in sectors beyond electricity generation.
It is important to commit to these changes in advance given the time required for consumer behaviours to adapt as well as time needed to develop new policies, to grow currently nascent markets and to invest in supporting infrastructure and innovation, the report says.
The Committee estimates that meeting the proposed fifth carbon budget will involve an annual cost in 2030 that is up to £3 billion (around 0.1% of expected GDP) more than the cost of meeting the fourth carbon budget that has already been legislated. The total annual cost of meeting the fifth carbon budget in 2030 is therefore similar to its estimate of the cost of meeting the fourth carbon budget in 2025: less than 1% of GDP.
Click here to download the Committee on Climate Change 5th Annual Carbon Budget
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