The UK has beaten its legally binding carbon emissions target and has announced it will not roll over the surplus to its next carbon budget.
The country overachieved the legally binding target for carbon emissions under its 2018 – 2022 Carbon Budget 3 by 15%.
Under the UK’s Climate Change Act, the UK government can bank the surplus and expand future carbon budgets if the country’s emissions fall lower than the legal limit for each Carbon Budget. However, on the advice of the independent Climate Change Committee, the government has declined to do so.
Professor Piers Forster, interim chair of the Climate Change Committee, said: “The Committee congratulates the government on its decision not to carry forward any surplus from the Third Carbon Budget. It’s the right choice. It shows an understanding of both the climate science and the very real need to accelerate progress on emissions reduction.
“We’ve cut our emissions by half since 1990. The next big challenge is to hit the UK’s 2030 target, which is to decarbonise by 68% against 1990 levels. The government has made a sensible decision, in line with our advice, not to kick the can down the road. Now is the time for more investment in low-carbon solutions across the country. We’ll be advising on that more in the Committee’s upcoming Progress Report.”
Energy security and net zero minister Justin Tomlinson added: “By deciding not to carry forward our over-performance from the third carbon budget, we are doubling down on our commitment to reach net zero, and we’re already halfway there.
“This will keep the UK at the forefront of global efforts to cut its emissions, but we will do this while also driving down consumer bills.”
Picking up the pace
While this announcement and the accompanying prediction that the UK will likely overachieve on its 2023 – 2027 Carbon Budget 4 cause optimism, some have concerns that the pace of decarbonisation is too slow.
Last year’s progress report from the Climate Change Committee heavily criticised the UK government, arguing that policy gaps are contributing to a sluggish pace of change.
Posting on X (formerly Twitter) at the time of the report, the Climate Change Committee stated that its “confidence in the UK meeting its goals from 2030 onwards is now markedly less than it was in [its] previous assessment a year ago.”
Meanwhile, the National Audit Office (NAO) recently criticised the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) as being too slow in decarbonising home heating by deploying heat pumps. The impact of the green skills gap is hitting the heat pump industry particularly hard, with research from energy provider E.ON noting that 56% of UK builders cannot advise consumers on heat pumps.
Many argue that the lack of green funding is one of the causes of this issue, with the energy industry calling the lack of funding made available in the 2024 Spring Budget “a missed opportunity” for making net zero progress, despite calls from the National Infrastructure Committee to increase investment in the energy transition. This budget followed hot on the heels of a Greenpeace report that ranked the UK as the worst of the top European economies for green investments.
However, some positive developments in green funding are being seen, with the UK government’s latest phase of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme allocating almost half a billion pounds to various businesses and public buildings to enable them to decarbonise their operations.
