Power sector progress masks marked failure to decarbonise transport, agriculture and buildings – CCC

The UK’s success in lowering power sector emissions is masking marked failures in other areas that are lagging when it comes to decarbonisation, says the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) in its latest report on the UK’s progress towards its emissions reduction targets.

The climate progress watchdog’s Reducing UK emissions – 2018 Progress Report to Parliament says that the government needs to learn the lessons from the ten years since the Climate Change Act was set up in order to meet its emissions reduction targets in the 2020s and 2030s, and to not create unnecessary costs for consumers when decarbonising further.

The report reiterates the messages from the CCC’s appraisal of the government’s Clean Growth Strategy, published in January – that the UK is not on course to meet the fourth (2023–2027) or fifth (2028–2032) carbon budgets due to a lack of progress in decarbonising its transport, agriculture and buildings sectors. The UK’s transport sector has actually increased its emissions over the last five years, notes the report.

The CCC says that it is now critical that the government brings forward effective new policies to deliver commitments beyond its achievements in decarbonising the power and waste sectors – which have helped the UK reduce its emissions by 43% on 1990 levels. The government’s Clean Growth Strategy to continue emissions reduction progress, published in October, was lauded for its vision but also criticised for its lack of policy detail.

This year’s progress report has four main messages to government on putting emissions reductions back on track.

First, it says the government should support simple, low-cost decarbonisation options. The CCC highlights onshore wind power specifically, stating that a lack of a route to market for cheap onshore wind is penalising the consumer. It also criticises the withdrawal of incentives for home insulation.

Second, government should commit to effective regulation with strict enforcement. The CCC advocates tightening long-term standards in areas like construction and vehicle emissions. It says that providing a ‘long line of sight to new regulation’ will reduce the economic costs of compliance.

Third, government should end the ‘chopping and changing of policy’. The CCC criticises the government for the uncertainty caused by cancelling important programmes like the Zero Carbon Homes plan and the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) competition at short notice. The CCC says that creating a consistent policy environment will keep investor risk low and reduce the cost of capital for future projects.

Finally, action is needed now to keep long-term options for emissions mitigation open, says the CCC. New national infrastructure, in CCS for example, will be needed to reach the current 80% emissions reduction goal and will become even more important if the UK aims for the more stringent targets of the Paris Agreement, says the report. While energy systems in 2050 cannot yet be defined, action now to prove the government is serious about their future deployment is necessary to bring down costs and support the growth of low carbon goods and services, says the CCC.

The CCC is critical of the lack of any concrete policy progress since the publication of the Clean Growth Strategy, and of the delay of publication of the Department for Transport’s long-awaited ‘Road to Zero’ strategy. It lists some ‘critical commitments’ it expects government to deliver before the CCC’s next progress report in June 2019, including concrete policies on residential energy efficiency, a deployment pathway for CCS and a new policy to strengthen the incentives for people to buy electric vehicles.

Reactions

Commenting on the CCC report, Emma Pinchbeck, Executive Director at RenewableUK said: ‘Any politician who blocks onshore wind has to explain to voters why they’re being denied the lowest-cost power source… Denying new projects the chance to compete against other technologies on a level playing field is out of step with the public opinion; the government’s most recent opinion polls show an all-time high of 76% of people support onshore wind.’

‘This is a stark warning from the independent advisory body that the UK government is unnecessarily increasing the cost of tackling climate change by preventing the cheapest technologies, like onshore wind and solar, from competing in the electricity market,’ said Fabrice Leveque, Senior Policy Manager at Scottish Renewables.

The CEO of the Solar Trade Association Chris Hewlett said: ‘A failure to promptly remove self-defeating barriers to solar power will leave the UK falling even further on behind in what is already the biggest clean energy market in the world.’

Analysis from Aurora Energy Research indicates that cheap, unsubsidised renewable energy could deliver around half of the 80 TWh of additional zero carbon generation needed to reach the CCC’s electricity decarbonisation target of 100 gCO2/kWh by 2030. It says that without a government decision on future subsidy levels, investments in low carbon energy are likely to be delayed.

The CCC Chairman Lord Deben told an audience at the Energy Institute’s Energy Systems Conference shortly before the report was published that the government’s proposed 2040 date to ban the sale of fossil fuel vehicles does not go far enough and should be brought forward; and that the heat sector was where there is the biggest demand for stronger regulation.

‘Climate change does not wait while we carry out the energy transformation,’ he said. ‘We have to do it at the pace that science demands.’