News | Climate Change

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=aj6u7pAJq_UA

The U.K. is only on track to meet its self-imposed greenhouse gas reduction targets because of the recession, a panel of lawmakers from the nation’s three main political parties said.

The Environmental Audit Committee said Britain should step up efforts to reach an international agreement on capping emissions of heat-trapping gases and ensure they peak “as soon as possible.” The findings were published in a 51-page report in London today.
The U.K. economy has suffered its longest recession on record, contracting a total of 6 percent over 1 1/2 years through September. U.K. emissions fell 2 percent in 2008, the most recent year for which data are available.
“At the moment, we are only on track to meet the targets in our first carbon budget period because of the impact of the recession,” Tim Yeo, chair of the Environmental Audit Committee and a member of the opposition Conservative Party, said in a statement. “The slower our progress, the less credibility we will have internationally.”
The panel’s findings match those of the Climate Change Committee, which advises the government and said on Oct. 12 that the slump may trim polluting emissions up to 75 million tons over the five years through 2012.
The government aims to reduce greenhouse gases by 34 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. Yeo’s committee recommended the government raise this to a 42 percent cut “once it is on track to meet its current targets.”
Between 2003 and 2007, U.K. emissions fell at less than 1 percent a year, according to today’s report. That’s lower than the annual 2 percent to 3 percent reduction recommended by the government advisory panel.
Emission Cuts
The lawmakers’ findings may undermine Britain’s effort to push other countries to sign up to an agreement aimed at limiting emissions of gases blamed for global warming.
“We must send a clear signal to developing countries that we are serious about making an international deal work by meeting our own targets more quickly,” Yeo said.
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband last week told lawmakers Britain will try to persuade more countries to sign up to the Copenhagen Accord, a non-binding emissions- limiting agreement reached last month in the Danish capital. Miliband said 49 countries have signed up to the deal so far, and he is “disappointed” the talks in Denmark didn’t establish a clear timetable to translate the pact into a legal treaty.
The government in April set its first “carbon budget,” imposing a limit of 3.018 billion tons of carbon dioxide over five years through 2012.
The 3.018 billion-ton, 5-year budget translates to about 604 million tons a year. Output of six heat-trapping gases dropped to 623.8 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2008, from 636.6 million metric tons a year earlier, the Department of Energy and Climate Change said on March 26.