The UK should cut its carbon emissions by 81% by 2035, the government’s climate advisor said today.
Photo: DrillOrDropThe Climate Change Committee (CCC) said in a letter to the energy secretary, Ed Miliband that an ambitious target would:
“show UK climate leadership and reinforce the commitments that the Government has made to put climate and nature at the centre of its domestic missions and foreign policy”.
The interim chair of the CCC, Professor Piers Forster, said:
“I have no doubt that the United Kingdom can once again be a leader on the international stage – in both deeds and words.”
The advice, requested by Mr Miliband, concerns the UK’s nationally determined contribution (NDC), a key part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change.
Every five years, countries announce their NDCs, which set out the efforts they are making to reduce national emissions and adapt to climate change.
The UK is expected to announce its 2035 NDC at next month’s climate summit (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The CCC said:
“We recommend that the UK’s NDC commits to reduce territorial greenhouse gas emissions by 81% from 1990 to 2035.”
The letter said the recommendation was based on the CCC’s forthcoming advice on the UK’s seventh carbon budget, to be published in February 2025, and informed by the latest science, technological developments and the UK’s national circumstances.
The CCC described the reduction as:
“ambitious, deliverable, and consistent with the emissions reduction required to meet the UK’s legally binding Sixth Carbon Budget (2033 to 2037).
“It makes a credible contribution towards limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in line with the Global Stocktake and Paris Agreement and represents a clear progression beyond the UK’s 2030 NDC commitment.”
Professor Forster said:
“With climate damages already felt around the world, targeting an 81% emissions reduction by 2035 sets the right level of ambition.
“The technologies needed to achieve it are available, at a competitive price, today. Investment in low carbon technologies – electric vehicles, heat pumps, and renewables – needs to come now for this target to be achievable.
“Businesses will start to invest when they have confidence in what the Government’s long term policy plans are. We need to see the Government’s commitment to climate reflected in the upcoming Budget.”
The chair of parliament’s energy security and net zero committee, Bill Esterson, said:
“There’s decades-long recognition that the transition to green energy and away from fossil fuels will be advantageous to the UK, both in terms of climate and economy. The Climate Change Committee has again spelled out the benefits to jobs and bills, as well as from tackling global warming, of hitting our climate targets.
“The UK was, until recently, at the forefront of driving towards a cleaner global economy, and the Secretary of State has set out how he wants the UK to get back to a position of global leadership.
“My Committee will be at the forefront of Parliament’s scrutiny of the delivery of the government’s plans; seeking to be a critical friend; examining how these plans will be delivered and making recommendations on how Government can improve its ability to deliver both the environmental and economic gains.”
Friends of the Earth said the recommended 81% cut should be the minimum carbon reduction target for the UK. Its head of science, policy and research, Mike Childs, said:
“Ramping up ambition to make even deeper cuts in practice would show real leadership in global efforts to avert the worst of climate breakdown.
“Setting strong future targets is essential, but this will be fatally undermined if existing commitments aren’t met – and the UK is way off track for meeting its pledge to cut planet-warming pollution by over two thirds by 2030.”
The government has until May 2025 to produce a new climate plan, after two successful legal challenges by Friends of the Earth and others to the previous Conservative government’s strategies.
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