Progress far too slow on cutting emissions, says watchdog

Actual (blue) and needed greenhouse gas emissions for the UK. The Committee says they only began declining again in the last year by coincidence. Click for larger version.

The Government must quadruple its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if it is to meet future carbon budgets warns the watchdog Committee on Climate Change in its new annual report.

It says that despite greenhouse gas emissions falling by 7% last year, only 0.8% of this fall was due to Government policy. The rest happened because of coincidental factors which cannot be relied upon to meet targets.

“Much of last year’s fall in emissions was due to a combination of mild weather, rising fuel prices, falling incomes and transitory factors in power generation," said David Kennedy, Chief Executive of the CCC. "But as the economy recovers it will be difficult to keep the country on track to meet carbon budgets. We need to tackle major challenges to drive emissions down across the economy – and to do this as a matter of urgency.”

Yesterday, Energy Minister Charles Hendry was celebrating apparent progress in decarbonising the UK grid, as his department issued its quarterly energy statistics. He said they showed "a clear increase on the first quarter of last year across all renewables, with rises in wind, hydro, solar and bioenergy generation.

“Alongside a 36% increase in renewables capacity in the last 12 months, this shows that the UK is powering forward on clean and secure energy and is clearly a very attractive place to invest,” he said.

The latest energy statistics do record progress, with onshore wind generation increasing by 51% and offshore by 51% in the first quarter of 2012, and the high amount of rainfall helped to boost hydroelectric generation by 43%. In 2011, renewable heat sources increased by 5% but still only accounted for around 2.2% of total heat demand.

This is good news but not good enough for the Committee.

In reducing emissions, decarbonising the power sector is only part of the picture. Nevertheless, the report complains that investment in wind generation in 2011 was just one third of the rate required annually to achieve the target by the end of the decade.

It says that a total of £8 billion is required to support low carbon generation by 2020-21, which would satisfy a shopping list of one new nuclear reactor, four CCS demonstration projects, 15GW of onshore and 12GW of offshore wind, plus a mix of other renewables.

The important figure for the statistics comes in terms of measuring progress towards the 2020 target of deriving 15% of all energy from renewable sources, as specified under the 2009 Renewable Energy Directive. The provisional figures show that during 2011, just 3.8% of final energy consumption was from renewable sources. This is an increase from the revised 2010 figure of 3.2%, and 3.0% in 2009.

Although there is plenty of potential new wind generation in the pipeline, the Committee says that “delivering investments will require resolution of current policy uncertainties, and that financing barriers are addressed".

Most urgently it wants to see support levels confirmed under the Renewables Obligation. Then there must be a major role for the Green Investment Bank in mobilising project finance for offshore wind investment. The Government also needs to work with its EU partners to strengthen the carbon price within the EU emissions trading scheme.

The Committee is furthermore concerned at the lack of progress on carbon capture and storage (CCS). It warns that projects must be selected and funding awarded this year, with construction starting by 2014.

It recommends further incentives: to increase uptake particularly of cavity wall and loft insulation in the Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligation, to support renewable heat in the residential sector, and to address market barriers such as households not having confidence in or enough information about renewable heat technologies.

It advises retaining the Carbon Reduction Commitment, but with a reduced administrative burden and a redesigned league table to strengthen reputational incentives.

There should be a Green Deal for the non-residential sector in place by the end of the year and ambitious standards for private rented regulation in the non-residential sector by the end of 2013.

It also wants to see, in the forthcoming industry strategy, approaches set out to increase the use of sustainable bioenergy in large industry.

Transport

Renewable biofuels for transport actually fell by 7% (to 1,127 ktoe), comprising just 3.5% by volume of road transport fuels in 2011.

In this sector, the Committee wants to see more incentives to encourage the reduction of emissions from new vans, an increase in the electric vehicle market, and a reversal of the decision on company car tax relief for electric vehicles which George Osborne made in the last budget.

In the Budget 2012 George Osborne announced that company car tax exemption for electric vehicles would be withdrawn from 2015/16. This decision, the Committee says, will not raise significant revenue, given the low sales of electric vehicles, but it will undermine incentives for purchase of electric company cars, a market niche where there is a potentially high share of early adopters.

Interestingly, the Committee proposes that driving tests should include standards for driving fuel-efficiently, and wants to see the current motorway speed limit enforced properly, code for saying do not increase the speed limit.

Agriculture must play its part, the Committee says, and there needs to be a robust framework in place for monitoring changes in farming practice that influence emissions, and by the end of the year a strategy for going beyond the current voluntary approach in the sector to cutting emissions.

The Committee wants to see the electricity market reforms set a clear objective of achieving carbon intensity in power generation of the order of 50gCO2/kWh in 2030. This would "provide investor confidence that there will be a market for low carbon technologies that are built to schedule and cost and that there will not be a second dash for gas".

In conclusion, the Committee issues a stark warning: "when we first highlighted the need for a step change in investment there was a lead-time of several years, but this has now elapsed. Therefore the step change is needed urgently if we are to remain on track to meeting future carbon budgets".

Can biofuels fuel our transport needs?

By 2050, biofuels could provide 27% of total transport fuel, supplementing diesel, kerosene and jet fuel while avoiding emissions of around 2.1 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 emissions per year - but only if produced sustainably, according to a new International Energy Agency (IEA) roadmap published today.

But biofuels aren't the only fuel - electric vehicles are taking to the road too, and yesterday saw the publication of a new UK Low Carbon Automotive Directory to promote UK expertise in the area for export.

What we do about transport to make it sustainable is the thorniest question facing us as we try to steer our high-energy way of life towards a more climate-friendly future.

The kind of answer arrived at affects the degree to which lifestyles, accustomed or aspiring to the freedom of movement that cars, planes, buses and trains currently offer, can continue into the future.

The IEA technology roadmap, Biofuels for Transport is positive, and provides an excellent overview of many of the fuelstocks and conversion technologies, from those in full commercial production now, to those which are just in R&D.

It also examines their carbon balance and overall sustainability, which is crucial to minimising the impact of travel.

However, it does not cover everything - it is relatively quiet on aviation fuel and in particular on jatropha. This is a plant which grows on land otherwise unusable for farming, makes biodiesel, and was recently tested by Japan Airlines, Air New Zealand, Continental, Brazil's TAM Airlines and Mexican carrier Interjet with Airbus.

A peer-reviewed Yale University study says it could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from flying by up to 60%.

140,000 formerly impoverished farmers in India are now earning a living cultivating the crop without compromising food supply or food pricing - which makes it highly sustainable. India aims to meet 20% of its diesel demand with fuel derived from plants rather than fossils by 2017.

The IEA report is also weak on the multiple benefits of algae-farming. Algae produces biodiesel while absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and processing sewage, and proposals have been made to grow it alongside industrial plants which emit the greenhouse gas. The process also produces a fertiliser and clean water.

A recent report in the New Scientist on the subject does highlight physical limits to how much we could make, but of course the fuel-source is only one amongst many.

Can we produce enough sustainable biofuels?

The IEA study says most conventional biofuel technologies need to improve conversion efficiency, cost and overall sustainability, and that current advanced, second-generation biofuels need to be commercially deployed.

We must be fully confident that the life-cycle impacts of these products do not compromise food security and biodiversity, and yield positive social impacts. This includes sustainable land-use management and certification schemes, as well as support measures that promote 斗ow-riskfeedstocks and efficient processing technologies.

The report calculates the land area requirements for biofuel feedstock, at around 100 million hectares (Mha) in 2050 - a considerable challenge given competition for land and feedstocks from rapidly-growing demand for food and fibre.

But it concludes this should be possible, and provide the required 145 EJ of total biomass for biofuels, heat and electricity from crop residues and wastes, along with sustainably grown energy crops.

Will it be expensive?

The IEA roadmap says that scale and efficiency improvements will reduce costs to make most biofuels competitive with fossil fuels by 2030.

The investment costs seem high - production costs from 2010 to 2050 in this roadmap are $11 trillion to $13 trillion, but the marginal savings or additional costs compared to use of gasoline/diesel are in the range of only +/-1% of total costs for all transport fuels - and this is without factoring in the externalities of environmental damage avoided from not using fossil fuels.

UK leadership

The UK is a pioneer in many aspects of low carbon vehicles, well-placed to profit from the global shift to sustainable transport. The updated UK Low Carbon Automotive Directory has been produced to help boost the export market for this emerging sector.

It lists suppliers, partners and new solutions from the UK's businesses and research institutions in areas such as manufacturing, components, transmissions & drive trains, energy recovery & storage (batteries and flywheels), electrical recharging infrastructure, fuels & infrastructure and hydrogen and fuel cells.

The sector is supported by the BIS Automotive Unit with the DfT's Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) and LowCVP.

Crucial to fostering UK success is Cenex - the UK's first Centre of Excellence for low carbon and fuel cell technologies.

Cenex has just launched its website allowing registration for the key trade show for the sector, LCV2011, the 4th annual Low Carbon Vehicle event which will take place on 7th and Thursday 8th September 2011.

Navigating the route to a low-carbon travel is tricky, but the encouraging message is that it is potentially achievable.