UK govt urged to set ‘ambitious’ climate target
LONDON: UK government advisers on Saturday urged ministers to set an “ambitious” target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81 percent by 2035 to combat climate change.
Britain's Climate Change and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband leaves from 10 Downing Street on October 22, 2024. -- AFP.
The last Conservative government in 2020 set a goal of 68 percent emission cuts on 1990 levels by 2030.
But the nation’s top climate change advisory body said earlier this year that “only six years away, the country is not on track to hit this target” and urged the new Labour government to step up its efforts.
In a letter Saturday to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said the 81-percent target was “deliverable” and “informed by the latest science, technological developments, and the UK’s national circumstances”. But it added: “Setting a target is not enough. The UK must back up its international commitments through actions here at home.”
The committee said in July only around one-third of the emissions reductions the UK needed to make were currently covered by credible plans—mostly in the electricity supply and surface transport sectors. Labour, which won power in July, is due to unveil its climate plans under the global Paris Agreement, which requires countries to take action to mitigate the worst impacts of global warming.
The legally binding international treaty on climate change, signed in 2016, aims to keep global average temperature rises “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels. It also pushes to limit warming to 1.5C—seen as the threshold beyond which the worst impacts of climate change will be felt.
Countries are due to submit new five-year proposals to cover the period 2025 to 2035 ahead of COP30 in Brazil next December. To meet the 1.5C target, the world’s carbon emissions must fall to net zero by 2050. Four years ago, the UK Conservative government set a goal of 68 percent emission cuts by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, which was in line with the CCC’s advice at the time. Environmental groups welcomed the committee’s latest recommendation but urged the government to go even further.
“The Climate Change Committee has given ministers a useful benchmark for climate action but they may want to aim higher to show true global leadership and take full responsibility for the UK’s historic role as a major carbon polluter,” said Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK,
“Actions speak louder than words, and true leadership means the government must also set out tangible plans to deliver on its 2035 target,” he added. Isabella O’Dowd, WWF’s head of climate policy, also called on the government to “show global leadership by going further and adopt climate targets for international aviation and shipping”. “Acting now will revitalise the UK economy, increase our energy security and support a just transition for all sectors,” she said.
The CCC previously urged action “across all sectors of the economy”, laying out 10 recommendations including a mass roll-out of heat pumps and a far wider use of electric vehicles. Everywhere, low-carbon technologies “must become the norm”, while in UK energy production should move away from oil and gas, it said in its annual report in July.
Committee member Corinne Le Quere, a climatologist at the University of East Anglia, said the UK had achieved a nearly 50 percent fall in emissions, but action was needed across the board. “The UK has focused a lot on the decarbonisation of its electricity network, exiting coal and the deployment of renewable energies, particularly wind power. But we haven’t had enough attention paid to other sectors of the economy,” she told AFP.
“The government really needs to diversify its measures so that the entire economy is decarbonised.” The UK’s last coal-fired power station officially closed at the end of September—a first among G7 nations. — AFP.
