British lawmakers query 60% carbon cut target

Britain is having difficulty meeting its voluntary goal of cutting carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2010, raising doubts over its legal target of a 60 per cent carbon dioxide cut by 2050, lawmakers said yesterday.

In its second report on the European Union's carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS), the all-party House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee called on the government to limit the emissions permits that could be bought from abroad.

"The difficulties experienced in meeting the 2010 target... raises further concerns about the government's target for reducing UK CO2 by 60 per cent by 2050," it said.

"It is vital that the government does not rely on buying emissions reductions abroad to make up anything more than an insignificant amount of the 2050 target."

Leading scientists predict average world temperatures will rise by 1.8 to four degrees Celsius this century due mainly to carbon gases from burning fossil fuels for power and transport.

The government will next month publish a draft Climate Change Bill setting in law its voluntary target of cutting emissions of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 60 per cent by 2050.

The bill is expected to become law early next year, but already environmentalists and many politicians have vowed to campaign to get the figure raised significantly.

Under the EU's ETS, affected industries are meant to get a quota of tradeable carbon emissions permits below their future emissions, driving reductions in the greenhouse gas.

But in the first trading period of the scheme from 2005-07 industry got more permits than they needed, knocking the floor from under the carbon price and making a mockery of the aim of emissions cuts.

In 2005, firms in 23 EU states were allocated total emissions permits of 2.07 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, but in practice they only generated 1.97 billion tonnes.

The parliamentary committee said there had been major teething troubles with Phase I, but that Phase II from 2008-2012 was starting to shape up, with the European Commission being far tougher on national emissions proposals.

"The signs are encouraging... that in Phase II the scheme will finally be moving in the right direction," said committee chairman Tim Yeo.

"The converse risk, if we get the design wrong, is that the credibility and potential effectiveness of emissions trading are fatally and permanently undermined," he added.

He also warned that emissions trading was only a means to an end - that of helping the world move to a low carbon economy in the battle against global warming - and as such was not a panacea.

"The government must not shy away from the truth that emissions trading itself is not a miracle cure for global warming, nor will it be painless," Mr Yeo added.