The UK Government has come a long way in preparing the ground for massive carbon emission cuts in the future, but still lacks a coherent plan that will actually deliver energy efficiency in practice.
The Energy Bill, which is supposed to lay the foundations for the Green Deal, carbon price floor, market reform, carbon capture and storage, and a mass roll out of energy efficiency and renewable energy, is currently approaching the Report Stage in Parliament.
However, although many of its aims are laudable, there is no chance of them being realised unless there is more joined-up connection across Government departments and across the country as a whole that lays out exactly how they will be achieved.
Although the Bill makes reference to fuel poverty, limiting or eliminating it is not one of its stated aims. It should be, otherwise there is no guarantee that it can happen.
Furthermore, although the Bill currently contains a long-term aim to meet the 2050 carbon reduction target, by not tying actions to interim carbon budgets there is no way of ascertaining whether measures taken in practice actually are commensurate with the requirements of these budgets, and whether the country is on the right path.
In fact, there is no mention of the interim carbon budgets in the Bill at all.
Carbon budgets are set by the Committee on Climate Change to act as milestones along the way to the overall target of reducing emissions by 80% by 2050. Its latest report says that already the UK may not meet the current period's budget by 2012.
Businesses and investors are unlikely to see the Green Deal as an opportunity without the certainty that interim targets will provide.
In order to arrive eventually at the 2050 destination, each sector within the economy needs to have a staged plan to work to, with interim goals along the way, and be effectively monitored.
In the building sector for example, the mechanism by which the Green Deal is implemented will be crucial to its success. It will require the cooperation of local planning departments, Building Control, the Treasury, trade associations, and the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Deciding on whether carbon emission reduction targets from this sector are being met will be estimated based on nominal values for the carbon saved as a result of specific measures carried out, such as the number of solid walls or lofts insulated.
But in practice, work may be poorly executed, some of it may be DIY of dubious quality, and Building Control is not currently mandated or equipped to judge whether or not this work is to the appropriate standard. Monitoring of results is going to be crucial to telling whether the predicted emissions are really saved or not.
Nowhere in Government will you find a plan that pulls all these threads together.
WWF, along with the National Insulation Association, the Mineral Wool Insulation Manufacturers Association, and the Gypsum Products Development Association and many more, tabled an amendment to this effect in the committee stage of the Energy Bill called the Warm Homes Amendment.
Unfortunately, MPs voted the amendment out, instead inserting their own - now in as clauses 107 to 108. But there is still time to get it in, and MPs continue to be lobbied by the campaign.
Another objection to the Green Deal has been raised by Andrew Warren, director of the Association for the Conservation of Energy and himself picked by the Energy Minister Greg Barker to chair an industry-based advisory forum on the scheme.
The scheme is expected to contribute to a 29% reduction in carbon emissions from homes and 13% reduction from non-domestic properties by 2020.
Warren makes the valid point that the way the financing of the Green Deal currently set up could well cause it to backfire and shift public opinion against it. This is because it is financed by an increase on electricity bills, which will not be reduced by most of the actions taken under the Green Deal.
Instead, the reductions in energy use made from the measures taken will appear on heating bills which, for 78% of our homes and other buildings, is provided by natural gas.
Where participants get gas and electricity bills from the same company and when they receive joint bills, then allocating the Green Deal to the gas part should be achievable.
But most people still buy from two different providers, and when they discover that their electricity bill has risen and carries the Green Deal loan costs on it as well, then this, Warren says, is when they will be asking “why on earth they ever got involved with this Government flagship policy at all".
As WWF's campaigner on the issue, Darren Shirley, says, a high level framework is missing from the Energy Bill. Without a plan for saving energy, it will not happen. It needs many similar issues defining and joining up to make it deliverable.
In short, the strategy around the Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation needs more incentives and checks to improve energy efficiency in the large proportion of the housing stock that currently lacks adequate insulation.
Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) and Display Energy Certificates (DECs) should be introduced into all non-residential buildings to incentivise emissions reduction.
At the moment, the Bill is still hot air. But isn't that what it's supposed to be eliminating?
Showing posts with label Carbon budget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carbon budget. Show all posts
Friday, July 01, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The UK is failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions...
...but the world is warming faster.
The UK is failing to act fast enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and might have to purchase carbon offsets to meet its 2025 goals, according to the Committee on Climate Change’s 3rd Annual Report.
This news is given more urgency this week when it was reported that carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere increased by 2.60 parts per million in 2010, more than the average annual increase seen from 1980-2010.
"The indicators show unequivocally the world continues to warm," said Thomas Karl, director of the US National Climatic Data Centre (NCDC), releasing the 2010 State of the Climate report, backed by the American Meteorological Society, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Met Office.
It says the world's climate is not only continuing to warm, it's adding heat-trapping greenhouse gases faster than in the past.
The CCC said that schedules to reduce emissions slipped in several areas in 2010. For example:
Without the cold weather last winter, emissions would have been broadly flat but needed to reduce by 3%. However, emissions in 2010 were still within the limits of the first carbon budget period of 2008-2012 because the impact of the recession caused a 9% fall from 2008-09.
The CCC’s chief executive, David Kennedy, acknowledged that massive emission cuts were never expected early in the first period. “The focus was always going to be on getting the policies in place, such as electricity market reform and the Green Deal (household energy efficiency programme),” he explained.
But he said that it was vital to insulate all lofts and cavity walls by 2015. Only 13,000 walls were insulated in 2010 and 20 million solid walls remain to be insulated by 2020. More effort needed to be done to decarbonise transport and shorten planning times for renewable energy projects too.
If it failed to take sufficient action, the UK would have to use carbon offsets purchased abroad to meet its 2025 CO2 reduction goal, he said.
In response, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne insisted the Coalition is on course, citing its “once-in-a-generation reforms of the electricity market, the Green Deal and the Green Investment Bank", which "show we’re serious about making the long-term structural changes that are vital to cut emissions and keep the lights on”.
David Kennedy cautioned that the electricity market reforms to be announced next month should include long-term contracts, such as so-called contracts-for-difference and prevent the existence of an “investment hiatus".
The CBI employers group supported the committee's criticism and called on the government to clarify a number of “grey policy areas", such as the Green Deal, electricity market reform and the Green Investment Bank.
The UK is failing to act fast enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and might have to purchase carbon offsets to meet its 2025 goals, according to the Committee on Climate Change’s 3rd Annual Report.
This news is given more urgency this week when it was reported that carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere increased by 2.60 parts per million in 2010, more than the average annual increase seen from 1980-2010.
"The indicators show unequivocally the world continues to warm," said Thomas Karl, director of the US National Climatic Data Centre (NCDC), releasing the 2010 State of the Climate report, backed by the American Meteorological Society, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Met Office.
It says the world's climate is not only continuing to warm, it's adding heat-trapping greenhouse gases faster than in the past.
The CCC said that schedules to reduce emissions slipped in several areas in 2010. For example:
- the number of cavity wall and loft insulation installations dropped by 30%
- implementation of carbon capture and storage demonstration projects have been delayed
- “eco-driving" courses trained only 10,000 drivers compared with 350,000 required per year by 2020.
Without the cold weather last winter, emissions would have been broadly flat but needed to reduce by 3%. However, emissions in 2010 were still within the limits of the first carbon budget period of 2008-2012 because the impact of the recession caused a 9% fall from 2008-09.
The CCC’s chief executive, David Kennedy, acknowledged that massive emission cuts were never expected early in the first period. “The focus was always going to be on getting the policies in place, such as electricity market reform and the Green Deal (household energy efficiency programme),” he explained.
But he said that it was vital to insulate all lofts and cavity walls by 2015. Only 13,000 walls were insulated in 2010 and 20 million solid walls remain to be insulated by 2020. More effort needed to be done to decarbonise transport and shorten planning times for renewable energy projects too.
If it failed to take sufficient action, the UK would have to use carbon offsets purchased abroad to meet its 2025 CO2 reduction goal, he said.
In response, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne insisted the Coalition is on course, citing its “once-in-a-generation reforms of the electricity market, the Green Deal and the Green Investment Bank", which "show we’re serious about making the long-term structural changes that are vital to cut emissions and keep the lights on”.
David Kennedy cautioned that the electricity market reforms to be announced next month should include long-term contracts, such as so-called contracts-for-difference and prevent the existence of an “investment hiatus".
The CBI employers group supported the committee's criticism and called on the government to clarify a number of “grey policy areas", such as the Green Deal, electricity market reform and the Green Investment Bank.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Cameron must listen to business and implement the 4th carbon budget
David Cameron must announce on Monday that he is accepting the fourth carbon budget for the period 2023-2027 published by the independent Committee for Climate Change last December.
The Cabinet is split on the affair. Even the Liberal Democrats are divided, with business secretary Vince Cable seeking a watered-down version while energy and climate minister Chris Huhne is recommending full acceptance.
Labour leader Ed Miliband has written to Cameron with the support of Huhne's shadow, Meg Hillier, challenging him to accept the budget.
If he doesn't, it will be the first time that the Government has not accepted the CCC's recommendations.
The fourth budget limits emissions over the period to 1950 MtCO2e, which will attain an emissions cut 50% below 1990 levels in 2025 and 60% by 2030.
The budget says that it "represents our assessment of a minimum UK contribution likely to be appropriate to a future global deal covering the 2020s".
In a leaked letter, Cable writes about his concerns that the level of abatement "may not be technically feasible" and is "not cost-effective", because it assumes that a future EU-ETS cap consistent with a 30% emissions reduction target by 2020 is set.
However, as I reported last month, this level is not far off in any case.
Cable would like to set a level instead of 2170 MTCO2e, but is prepared to accept a compromise, of CCC's recommendation for the non-traded sector. He claims that this can allow the Cabinet to claim that the Coalition is "The Greenest Government Ever" [sic].
In his letter, Ed Miliband says that for Cameron to do anything other than accept the CCC's recommendations would be to abandon the cross-party support that has so far characterised action on climate change.
He says it did appear "that on this crucial issue for the future of the planet which our children will one day inherit, there was broad cross-party consensus".
Not to cut emissions at a rate that "independent experts say is necessary to prevent dangerous climate change would send a terrible signal to business and to the rest of the world", he adds.
One thing is absolutely certain: the Government has been inundated with requests from business for a clear set of policies into the future, to give reassurance to investors in financing the low carbon industrial revolution that can let Britain lead the way.
Two weeks ago even the CBI told the Government that "low-carbon investment is vital for the UK", that "the pace and scale of investment is a barrier to success" and "Government must take action to set the right investment conditions".
Amongst those who have cried out for this assurance you can find John Lewis, Unilever, Shell, water and energy companies and many more.
This week Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas offered to set up an offshore manufacturing base in Sheerness, Kent. Vestas, but only if the UK Government delivers "stability in the market and long term political and regulatory certainty.”
Maria McCaffery, Chief Executive of RenewableUK, agrees: "We have an unprecedented situation where some of the best known companies in the world are literally queuing up to invest in the UK. The Government now needs to seal the deal on offshore: it needs to bag the first 8,000 jobs and hundreds of millions of pounds already pledged, by firmly supporting the technology.”
Even Foreign Secretary William Hague is in favour of accepting the budget. In another leaked letter sent last month to the Prime Minister, he wrote, "I agree that we should not reject the fourth carbon budget recommended by the Committee on Climate Change in order to retain public support for our climate policy at home we need to be able to point to similar effort abroad. If our domestic resolve is seen to be weakening, we will lose traction elsewhere."
This week CCC chair Lord Turner met Vince Cable in an attempt to persuade him to change tack, and to show agreement with Cable's concerns about cost effectiveness even made a concession, in saying that offshore wind targets could be changed because more onshore wind would be more cost-effective.
This is a key test of the Government's commitment to tackling climate change and to the low carbon revolution which can create so many jobs in this country.
In opposition, Cameron argued that an independent body was necessary to set and enforce emission targets, and ministers shouldn't be able to change them.
With so many voices in support, it is vital that David Cameron remains firm as a champion of this sector, the only sector that has a chance of leading the country out of the economic doldrums in which it remains stuck.
The Cabinet is split on the affair. Even the Liberal Democrats are divided, with business secretary Vince Cable seeking a watered-down version while energy and climate minister Chris Huhne is recommending full acceptance.
Labour leader Ed Miliband has written to Cameron with the support of Huhne's shadow, Meg Hillier, challenging him to accept the budget.
If he doesn't, it will be the first time that the Government has not accepted the CCC's recommendations.
The fourth budget limits emissions over the period to 1950 MtCO2e, which will attain an emissions cut 50% below 1990 levels in 2025 and 60% by 2030.
The budget says that it "represents our assessment of a minimum UK contribution likely to be appropriate to a future global deal covering the 2020s".
In a leaked letter, Cable writes about his concerns that the level of abatement "may not be technically feasible" and is "not cost-effective", because it assumes that a future EU-ETS cap consistent with a 30% emissions reduction target by 2020 is set.
However, as I reported last month, this level is not far off in any case.
Cable would like to set a level instead of 2170 MTCO2e, but is prepared to accept a compromise, of CCC's recommendation for the non-traded sector. He claims that this can allow the Cabinet to claim that the Coalition is "The Greenest Government Ever" [sic].
In his letter, Ed Miliband says that for Cameron to do anything other than accept the CCC's recommendations would be to abandon the cross-party support that has so far characterised action on climate change.
He says it did appear "that on this crucial issue for the future of the planet which our children will one day inherit, there was broad cross-party consensus".
Not to cut emissions at a rate that "independent experts say is necessary to prevent dangerous climate change would send a terrible signal to business and to the rest of the world", he adds.
One thing is absolutely certain: the Government has been inundated with requests from business for a clear set of policies into the future, to give reassurance to investors in financing the low carbon industrial revolution that can let Britain lead the way.
Two weeks ago even the CBI told the Government that "low-carbon investment is vital for the UK", that "the pace and scale of investment is a barrier to success" and "Government must take action to set the right investment conditions".
Amongst those who have cried out for this assurance you can find John Lewis, Unilever, Shell, water and energy companies and many more.
This week Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas offered to set up an offshore manufacturing base in Sheerness, Kent. Vestas, but only if the UK Government delivers "stability in the market and long term political and regulatory certainty.”
Maria McCaffery, Chief Executive of RenewableUK, agrees: "We have an unprecedented situation where some of the best known companies in the world are literally queuing up to invest in the UK. The Government now needs to seal the deal on offshore: it needs to bag the first 8,000 jobs and hundreds of millions of pounds already pledged, by firmly supporting the technology.”
Even Foreign Secretary William Hague is in favour of accepting the budget. In another leaked letter sent last month to the Prime Minister, he wrote, "I agree that we should not reject the fourth carbon budget recommended by the Committee on Climate Change in order to retain public support for our climate policy at home we need to be able to point to similar effort abroad. If our domestic resolve is seen to be weakening, we will lose traction elsewhere."
This week CCC chair Lord Turner met Vince Cable in an attempt to persuade him to change tack, and to show agreement with Cable's concerns about cost effectiveness even made a concession, in saying that offshore wind targets could be changed because more onshore wind would be more cost-effective.
This is a key test of the Government's commitment to tackling climate change and to the low carbon revolution which can create so many jobs in this country.
In opposition, Cameron argued that an independent body was necessary to set and enforce emission targets, and ministers shouldn't be able to change them.
With so many voices in support, it is vital that David Cameron remains firm as a champion of this sector, the only sector that has a chance of leading the country out of the economic doldrums in which it remains stuck.
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