New Report says the Government's plans do not meet scale of climate challenge.
The government's own Committee on Climate Change today gave its annual report assessing progress in reducing the UK's emissions over the past year. Needless to say it couldn’t be more damning in respect of progress on emissions from buildings.
The report's headlines find:
“That UK action to curb greenhouse gas emissions is lagging behind what is needed to meet legally-binding emissions targets. Since June 2018, government has delivered only 1 of 25 critical policies needed to get emissions reductions back on track.”
Committee chairman Lord Deben (the former agriculture minister John Gummer), said: "The whole thing is really run by the government like a Dad's Army. We can't go on with this ramshackle system.”
In the foreword Lord Deben and Baroness Brown state:
“The Clean Growth Strategy, the UK’s plan for emissions reduction, provides a solid foundation
for the action needed to meet a net-zero GHG target but policy ambition and implementation
now fall well short of what is required. Last June, we advised that 25 headline policy actions
were needed for the year ahead. Twelve months later, only one has been delivered by
government in full. Ten of the actions have not shown even partial progress. Government
continues to be off track for the fourth and fifth carbon budgets – on their own appraisal – and
the policy gap has widened further this year as an increase in the projection of future emissions
has outweighed the impact of new policies”.
The report highlights progress or lack of in all sectors e.g. transport, industry, power, but Elmhurst has highlighted below concerns expressed specifically for buildings.
Stuart Fairlie Technical & Operations Director at Elmhurst “It is fair to say that the committee’s report will make very uncomfortable reading for government. The report gives great clarity on where the UK has done well on emission reductions such as power, but also shines a light on areas that need a lot more work like transport and buildings. The medium and long term targets have been set, but as Elmhurst has stated many times before we need policies to get there.
"The shredding of energy efficiency polices and standards which occurred in 2012 under the previous Cameron and Osborne government, have never been replaced. The hope now is that after the plethora of consultations that have occurred since the Clean Growth Strategy, those ideas need to start to be turned into real policy and action. If we are serious about decarbonising and making our homes and business more energy efficient. As Lord Deben says we need to get on with it!”
For a copy of the full report click here
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