UK to Miss its Renewables and Carbon Emissions Reduction Targets for 2020

According to the new report from Cambridge Econometrics the UK will come short to meeting its 2020 renewables and CO2 emissions target. The new coalition Government must act swiftly to deliver new policies that will help the UK achieve the ambitious 34% reduction in green house gases by 2020.

Divided into 3 periods the UK is likely to meet its first carbon budgets up to 2017, but unless the New Coalition Government implement strong policies to promote renewable energy generation and to enhance energy efficiency in Britain, the report warns that based in current trends we will fall short to meet the 15% renewable energy generation and the 34% reduction in Green House Gases emissions (GHG).

“The incoming Government will need urgently not only to set out the details of the ambitious carbon-reduction policies it has inherited, but also move swiftly to their implementation if the UK is to achieve the statutory goal of a 34 % reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020,” said the report’s Co-Editor Paul Ekins.

The report argues that the Government will have to deliver new policies to increase the use of renewable energy to generate and transport fuel if it is to meet the carbon targets.

In 2009 CO2 emissions fell 10% thanks to the economic recession that has reduced industrial output and the switch from coal to more nuclear power, but according to the report it is unlikely to decline as much in 2010 and the following years as the economy start to regain its strength.

The previous Government predicted that to meet the EU renewable energy and CO2 emissions target the UK would need to source at between 30 to 40% of its electricity generation from renewables by 2020. However, the Cambridge Econometrics study predicts that if electricity demand grows at between 0.75% to 1% each year to 2020 and fossil fuel prices remain relatively high, then renewables will account for just 16.5% of the UK’s electricity mix by 2020 – well short of the target of between 30 and 40%.

“If the incoming Government puts in place effective policies that promote the increased use of renewable energy in transport and for heat supply, and if the vehicle fuel efficiency targets in road transport are extended beyond 2015 as currently proposed, it seems quite likely that non-traded sector emissions will move more in line with the carbon-budget target in the third 2018-22 period,” the report concludes.

On the other hand the UK is expected to meet easily its Kyoto protocol target to greenhouse gases emissions. Official figures suggest that in 2008 GHGs were some 19.4% down on the 1990 baseline as a result solely of domestic effort; the decline was 22% with allowance for trading under the EU ETS as permitted under the Kyoto Protocol.

On a net UK carbon account basis, taking into account trading of allowances under the EU ETS, the decline in GHGs between the average for 2008-12 and the 1990 baseline is expected to be around 22¼%.

About Cambridge Econometrics

Cambridge Econometrics is an independent private limited company and is owned by a Charity, the Cambridge Trust for the Promotion of New Thinking in Economics. It has been providing detailed economic and industrial forecasts since 1978. Our company also provides detailed regional and energy forecasts for the UK, and regional forecasts for the European Union. We provide the most detailed long-term economic and industrial forecasts available for the UK. The projections are produced using the ‘Cambridge model’, known as the Multisectoral Dynamic Model of the UK economy (MDM), which was originally developed in the University of Cambridge Department of Applied Economics. This large computerised system has approximately 5,000 endogenous variables and nearly 16,000 behavioural parameters and other coefficients. The model is continually revised and improved to take account of new data and advances in economic theory and econometric techniques

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