Today the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the UK Government’s independent advisory body, published much-anticipated advice on how the new and ambitious global deal in Paris could alter the UK’s efforts.
This is something RSPB cares about because climate change poses the greatest long-term threat to wildlife, and every degree of temperature rise puts more species at risk of loss and extinction.
The CCC’s letter today to Amber Rudd, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, begins well. It acknowledges that the aim of keeping temperature rises well below two degrees is a more ambitious trajectory and the UK needs to be part of efforts to achieve this.
However, unfortunately, they propose no changes in order to achieve this. Their advice is about the fifth carbon budget. This budget, from 2028-32, sets out the UK’s proposed cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. They don’t suggest that it should be any more ambitious than their advice back in November.
The Committee does say that the UK may want to tighten subsequent budgets, but right now they propose no change. Setting out that existing carbon budgets are an absolute minimum is right, but failing to insist on more ambition now is somewhat disappointing. In light of the ambitious deal in Paris, we hope that budgets might be tightened and made more ambitious in the future.
What’s more, we all know that action now is cheaper than action in the future, and that postponing cuts on emissions only makes it more likely that we might have to rely on untested or risky technologies like bioenergy carbon capture and storage, that can pose threats to nature.
The Committee rightly points out that more policy support is needed in order to make sure the UK meets its fourth and fifth carbon budgets, but this isn’t an excuse for keeping ambition the same – in fact it should be a spur to action.
The Committee will be providing more detail to Government on how they think the 5th carbon budget could be met. We hope this provides an opportunity for them to improve the targets in carbon budgets.
Matt Williams, Assistant Warden, RSPB Snape.