The Independent reports that the UK Government will probably miss its greenhouse gas emissions target "by a wide margin".
Britain has pledged to not only meet its Kyoto climate treaty target of reducing emissions 12.5 percent by 2010, but to cut emissions at least 20 percent by 2020. More recently, the draft Climate Change Bill proposed a 60 percent reduction by 2050, with an interim target of 26-32% by 2020.
However, according to the latest semi-annual analysis by the think tank Cambridge Econometrics, few of these targets are likely to be met. The reports findings include the following points:
- "...the government will miss its renewables electricity target for 2010 and 2015 by wide margins, but will nearly meet its target for 2020"
- "The projected fall in carbon emissions over 2005-10 will not be enough to achieve the government’s 20% domestic carbon-reduction goal"
- "Carbon emissions are expected to stabilise over 2010-15, but will resume their decline thereafter to 2020"
- "The UK is expected to meet the Kyoto target for greenhouse gases, despite the rise in CO2 emissions in 2004-06"
- "The government’s updated GHG projections for 2020, accompanying the 2007 Energy White Paper, may be optimistic."
