Reducing UK emissions – 2018 Progress Report to Parliament. See page 71: If new nuclear projects were not to come forward, it is likely that renewables would be able to be deployed on shorter timescales and at lower cost.
Climate Change Committee 28th June 2018 read more »
Young people will be left to pick up the bill for climate change because politicians are dodging the issue, a UK report warns. The government must act faster to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from road traffic, homes and farming, the Committee on Climate Change says. Without action, the coming generation will have to pay much more to curb emissions in a heating world. The government says it is committed to being a world leader on climate change. It will introduce its low-carbon transport plan soon. The advisers are “acutely concerned” at the UK’s lack of progress in cutting the carbon emissions overheating the planet. The committee says the UK made a good start with the power industry but emissions cuts have effectively stalled in the past five years. Members say it will be much cheaper, for instance, to begin a steady changeover to electric cars now than to have to rush the technology in years to come.
BBC 28th June 2018 read more »
Sales of diesel and petrol cars should be banned by 2030, a decade earlier than planned, the government’s climate change body recommends today. The Committee on Climate Change also calls on ministers to create new incentives to accelerate the take-up of electric cars by the end of this year. Just over 2 per cent of cars sold in the first five months of this year were electric or plug-in hybrids. Lord Deben, the committee’s chairman, said the government was not on course to meet its targets for cutting emissions in the 2020s. It was “disappointing” that the government had delayed publication of its Road to Zero strategy for switching to electric cars, it said. Lord Deben said that 2030 “or very close to that” should be the date for banning the sale of new non-hybrid diesel or petrol cars. The government announced last year th at sales would cease in 2040. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said 2030 was unrealistic.
Times 28th June 2018 read more »
The homebuilding and carmaking industries “should be ashamed” of their efforts to tackle global warming, according to the UK government’s official climate change adviser. Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), said housebuilders were “cheating” buyers with energy-inefficient homes and that motor companies were holding back the rollout of clean cars. The CCC’s annual report, published on Thursday, found the UK is on track to miss its legally binding carbon budgets in 2025 and 2030, due to lack of progress in cutting emissions from buildings and transport. It also said ministers were spurning low-cost options, such as onshore windfarms, home insulation and tree-planting, meaning people would end up paying more than needed to fight climate change. Home insulation installations are among the cheapest carbon cutting measures but the cancellation of government incentives has caused a 95% drop since 2012, the CCC said. “It is really shocking,” said Chris Stark, CCC chief executive, who noted that such measures cut energy bills by £100 a year on average. The government, which also cancelled plans to make new homes zero-carbon, must produce new policies and stick to them, said Stark. The big emissions cuts seen in electricity production, as renewables replace coal, shows action can be taken, he said: “We have seen what happens when the government takes an enlightened view and steps in.” Deben severely criticised the homebuilding industry: “The industry should be ashamed of itself that it is still producing homes that are cheating the people they sell to. If you don’t produce a properly insulated home, you put a burden on the purchaser and the next purchaser for the rest of time in terms of their energy bills.” “It is ridiculous,” he said. “You can provide the homes people need – well-insulated, low-energy cost homes – at a price which is very little different from the price today.”
Guardian 28th June 2018 read more »
Independent 28th June 2018 read more »
Progress in cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the power and waste sectors has “masked the failures in other areas”, says the government’s official climate advisors. The latest annual progress report from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), published today, says the UK now faces a much tougher challenge to tackle these other sectors, in order to meet its legally binding climate goals. Overall, emissions have fallen 43% since 1990, the CCC says, well on the way to the UK’s 2050 target of an 80% cut. However, progress so far has been driven by the power and waste sectors, while emissions from transport, buildings and agriculture have plateaued. Carbon Brief looks at what the CCC says is now needed from the government to put it back on track to meet its targets.
Carbon Brief 28th June 2018 read more »
Eight key takeaways from the Committee on Climate Change’s progress report.
Business Green 28th June 2018 read more »
Scientists studying one of the fastest-warming regions of the global ocean say changes in this region are so sudden and vast that in effect, it will soon be another limb of the Atlantic, rather than a characteristically icy Arctic sea. The northern Barents Sea, to the north of Scandinavia and east of the remote archipelago of Svalbard, has warmed extremely rapidly – by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) just since the year 2000 – standing out even in the fastest warming part of the globe, the Arctic.
Independent 27th June 2018 read more »