The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is calling on the Government to raise its game and set an ambitious new target to reduce the UK’s GHG emissions to zero by 2050.

In a major new report published today, Net Zero: The UK’s contribution to stopping global warming, the UK Government’s independent adviser on climate change says the UK can end its contribution to global warming within 30 years.

In Scotland, the CCC is recommending a net-zero date of 2045, reflecting Scotland’s greater relative capacity to remove emissions than the UK as a whole and a 95% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050 for Wales,.

Commenting on its recommendation of a new emissions target, Lord Deben, Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change said:

“Our recommendation emerges clearly from the extensive evidence presented here for the first time. We have built a new understanding of the potential to achieve deep emissions reduction in the UK and made a fresh appraisal of the costs and benefits to the UK economy of doing so.”

“Net-zero is a more fundamental aim than previous targets. By reducing emissions produced in the UK to zero, we also end our contribution to rising global temperatures. Every tonne of carbon counts, wherever it is emitted.“

Lord Deben has urged the Government to accept the recommendations in the report and start making the changes needed to deliver them without delay.

According to the CCC, Government “must set the direction and provide the urgency - the public will need to be engaged if the transition is to succeed.”

The CCC’s recommended targets, which cover all sectors of the UK, Scottish and Welsh economies, are achievable with known technologies, alongside improvements in people’s lives, and should be put into law as soon as possible, the Committee says.

Falls in cost for some of the key zero-carbon technologies mean that achieving net-zero is now possible within the economic cost that Parliament originally accepted when it passed the Climate Change Act in 2008.

Despite calls from a number of quarters to achieve net-zero emissions earlier than 2050, the Committee says it does “not currently consider it credible to aim to reach net-zero emissions” before then.

However, according to the CCC, the new target goes beyond the reduction needed globally to hold the expected rise in global average temperature to well below 2°C and beyond the Paris Agreement's goal to achieve a balance between global sources and sinks of greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the century.

“If replicated across the world, and coupled with ambitious near-term reductions in emissions, it would deliver a greater than 50% chance of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5°C”, the report says.

Foundations and policies already in place to deliver key pillars of a net-zero economy

The Committee’s detailed 277 page report, requested by the UK, Scottish and Welsh Governments in light of the Paris Agreement and the IPCC’s Special Report in 2018, finds that the foundations are already in place throughout the UK and the policies required to deliver key pillars of a net-zero economy are already active or in development. These include:

• a supply of low-carbon electricity (which will need to quadruple by 2050)
• efficient buildings and low-carbon heating (required throughout the UK’s building stock)
• electric vehicles (which should be the only option from 2035 or earlier)
• developing carbon capture and storage technology and low-carbon hydrogen (which are a necessity not an option)
• stopping biodegradable waste going to landfill
• phasing-out potent fluorinated gases
• increasing tree planting
• measures to reduce emissions on farms.

".but current policy  not enough even for existing targets and policies must be urgently strengthened"

However, the CCC is warning that current policy is not enough even for existing targets and that policies must be urgently strengthened and must deliver tangible emissions reductions.

The Committee is calling for delivery to progress with far greater urgency. Many current plans are insufficiently ambitious, while others are proceeding too slowly, even for the current 80% target, the report says.

It also concludes that 2040 is too late for the phase-out of petrol and diesel cars and vans, describing current plans for delivering this as too vague.

The CCC is critical of the fact that, over ten years after the Climate Change Act was passed, there is “still no serious plan for decarbonising UK heating systems and no large-scale trials have begun for either heat pumps or hydrogen.”

Commenting on carbon capture (usage) and storage, the report says that while global progress has also been slow, there are now 43 large-scale projects operating or under development around the world, but none in the UK. The CCC says that the technology, which it describes as “crucial to the delivery of zero GHG emissions and strategically important to the UK economy”, is yet to get started in the UK.

It also warns that afforestation targets for 20,000 hectares/year across the UK (due to increase to 27,000 by 2025), are not being delivered, with less than 10,000 hectares planted on average over the last five years. “The voluntary approach that has been pursued so far for agriculture is not delivering reductions in emissions,” the report says.

The policies will have to “ramp up significantly” for a ‘net-zero’ emissions target to be credible, according to the CCC, given that most sectors of the economy will need to cut their emissions to zero by 2050.

The Committee added that its conclusion that the UK can achieve a net-zero GHG target by 2050 and at acceptable cost is “entirely contingent on the introduction without delay of clear, stable and well-designed policies” across the emitting sectors of the economy.

Serious plans are needed to clean up the UK’s heating systems, to deliver the infrastructure for carbon capture and storage technology and to drive transformational change in how we use our land.

The report says that overall costs of the transition to a net-zero economy are manageable but they must be fairly distributed. Rapid cost reductions in essential technologies such as offshore wind and batteries for electric vehicles mean that a net-zero greenhouse gas target can be met at an annual cost of up to 1-2% of GDP to 2050.

However, “the costs of the transition must be fair, and must be perceived as such by workers and energy bill payers.”

Transition to zero-carbon economy could lead to an industrial boost for UK

Multiple benefits of the transition to a zero-carbon economy cited in the report include an industrial boost for the UK as it leads the way in low-carbon products and services including electric vehicles, finance and engineering, carbon capture and storage and hydrogen technologies with potential benefits for exports, productivity and jobs.

Lord Deben, Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, said:

“We can all see that the climate is changing and it needs a serious response. The great news is that it is not only possible for the UK to play its full part – we explain how in our new report – but it can be done within the cost envelope that Parliament has already accepted. The Government should accept the recommendations and set about making the changes needed to deliver them without delay.”

A net-zero target would require a 100% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. It is referred to as ‘net’ as the expectation is that it would be met with some remaining sources of emissions which would need to be offset by removals of CO2 from the atmosphere – by growing trees, for example.

The CCC is calling for clear leadership right across Government, with delivery in partnership with businesses and communities, commenting:

“Emissions reduction cannot be left to the energy and environment departments or to the Treasury.It must be vital to the whole of government and to every level of government in the UK.”

“Policies must be fully funded and implemented coherently across all sectors of the economy to drive the necessary innovation, market development and consumer take-up of low-carbon technologies, and to positively influence societal change.”

Click here to download Net Zero: The UK’s contribution to stopping global warming

Click here to download the Technical Report  which is published alongside Net Zero: The UK’s contribution to stopping global warming