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Climate Change Review Gets A Bad Reception

Posted: 29/03/2006

The government have finally announced the results of their review of climate change initiatives a year late amid a hail of criticism from environmentalists. They are not going to meet their targets, but instead of taking this opportunity to put in place measures that would really make a difference to reduce climate damaging emissions, they've lowered their expectations, say Greenpeace.

Since Labour came to power, Tony Blair has repeatedly said that climate change is the most important issue facing the planet. Yet CO2 emissions have actually gone up by three per cent since Blair came to power in 1997. The latest figures show that they are currently only around five per cent below 1990 levels.

Friends of the Earth accused Ministers of lacking the political will to tackle climate change, they described the review as "pathetic" and called for a new law to make the Government legally responsible for reducing UK carbon dioxide emissions, a move backed by the majority of MPs.

The review fails to address emissions from air and road transport, does not present a vision for sustainable building design or renewable energy, and contains no plans to tighten regulation on business.

In fact, it seems that the Government's promise of a stricter emissions cut for industry may not be true. As part of its announcement, the Government published a consultation on the National Allocation Plan for the second phase of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.

This sets the total limit on the amount of carbon dioxide that industry can emit in each of the five years from 2008 to 2012. The Government has said it will achieve carbon savings of between 3 and 8 MtC but this is measured from a baseline of the emissions predicted if no action were taken to save energy. However, the lower end of the range of saving proposed by Government would actually lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions from industry.

Under the current ETS industrial emissions (2005-2007) are capped at 245.43 MtCO2 per year. But the consultation on Phase II of the ETS (which will run from 2008-2012) says "the total allocation will not exceed 1260 MtCO2" over the whole five year period - or 252 MtCO2 per year. This means that ETS II could allow industry to emit more co2 than it does at the moment.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/euets-phasetwo nap/consultation.pdf[1](para 1.10, Consultation on the Phase II UK Draft National Allocation Plan.)

Greenpeace criticised the review on several counts - there are no measures to halt airport expansion and increase air passenger duty. Aviation must be included in EU Emissions trading scheme at the earliest possible opportunity, they say. And they want to see effective road tax bands introduced that actually incentivise people to use more efficient vehicles, plus legislation for best efficiency standards in each vehicle class to become mandatory.

On energy and buildings - the review should have ensured the tightening of building regulations to make all new buildings to zero emission standards by 2010 and provide tax incentives for the installation of micro-renewables in new and existing buildings.

And it does not go far enough in realising the massive potential for energy saving, renewable power and combined heat power schemes, leaving Britain largely dependent on the inefficient use of fossil fuels for electricity and heating, FOE concluded.

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