This debate below by the …
Climate Change Ctee … underplays the urgency of the global situation…
Key bit: Carry-forward of the full Third Carbon Budget surplus would put the 2030 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and the Sixth Carbon Budget at very serious risk, permitting an increase in emissions between the Third and Fourth Carbon Budget periods.
Future emissions targets must not be loosened
Under the UK’s Climate Change Act, carbon budgets are the legal targets for UK greenhouse emissions over a five-year period. At the end of a carbon budget, the Climate Change Committee must advise on the carry forward of any ‘surplus’, a facility which can be used to weaken later carbon budgets.
The Third Carbon Budget (2018 to 2022) was met with a surplus, assisted by the economy-shrinking effects of the pandemic. Today the Committee has written to Minister Graham Stuart, congratulating the Government for meeting its legal obligations, but advising unequivocally that surplus emissions must not be carried forward to loosen later carbon budgets.
