Cut greenhouse gas emissions by a fifth, ministers told

The Government’s own Climate Change Committee has recommended an interim target if the UK government is to meet its goal of an 80% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. If accepted by ministers the new plans could see up to 30% of electricity generated from renewable sources by 2020 - primarily wind power - and 40% of cars would be electric. The Report also calls for coal buring generators to capture and store CO2 by the early 2020s. The Committes report, Building a Low Carbon Economy - the UK’s Contribut8in to Tackling Climate Change, estimates that changes will cost less than 1% of national wealth in 202, or less than £15 billion.    That figure included the bill for helping up to 1.7m people who would otherwise be pushed into fuel poverty by higher energy bills . The cost, equivalent to reducing growth by 2020 from 30% to 29%, was “a price worth paying”, said the report. ”Climate change poses a grave threat to human welfare, the environment and the economy,” said Lord Turner, the committee chairman. “We need to act now, in the UK and as part of a global agreement, to significantly reduce our emissions.” The report was broadly approved by environmental groups but there were widespread concerns about whether the government would enact the tough policies the committee said were needed to deliver the emissions cuts, such as regulation to limit emissions from power plants and cars, and financial incentives to encourage higher take up of more efficient goods.

The report focuses on renewable electricity but it states that there could be significant potential for emissions reduction in the waste sector via processing food waste through AD to produce biogas, which can for example be compressed for use in vehicles, displacing diesel. The report also suggests processing residual waste through MBT to produce either solid recovered fuel (SRF), which can be used in power stations and cement kilns, or as an alternative to fertiliser.

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/01/climatechange-carbonemissions1

And for comment see George Monbiot’s article ‘Long, detailed and impressive - but futile in the face of runaway climate change’ in the Guardian, 2nd December 2008. George says that Lord Turner’s report doesnt go anyway near far enough and calls for six critical steps to be implemented which are (1) a re negotiaton of the Eurpean Emissions Trading Scheme (2) using money raised from the ETS to train builders so they have energy saving skills (3) ban incandescent light bulbs (4) heavily tax polluting cars - and use the money to subsidise public transport (5) stop burning moorland and (6) stop open cast coal mining.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/02/climate-change-lord-turner

And see David Adam’s analysis “Can we fix it? yes, we can - if we can be bothered” in the Guardian, 2nd December 2008.

The Climate Change Committe’s wishlist includes

-  Cut greenhouse gas emissions by 34% from 1990 levels

-  Increase renewable energy - especially windpower

-  Rapid introduction of carbon capture and storage for coal plants

-  Step up insulation of lofts and walls in homes

-  More renewable heating sources - biomass burning, solar photovoltaic

-  Steep cuts in emissions from petrol cars

-  Rapid introduction in hybrid cars

-  Better training for car drivers to save fuel