UK decarbonisation targets



The executive summary of a Policy paper entitled “Clean Growth Strategy” issued by the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), updated on 16th  April 2018, is available at

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/clean-growth-strategy/clean-growth-strategy-executive-summary

The summary refers to targets set by The Climate Change Act, passed in 2008, which committed the UK to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 when compared to 1990 levels, through a process of setting 5 year caps on greenhouse gas emissions termed ‘Carbon Budgets’. It reports that since 1990, the UK has cut emissions by 42%.  Challenges remain, however:
“In order to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets (covering the periods 2023 to 2027 and 2028 to 2032) we will need to drive a significant acceleration in the pace of decarbonisation…”
However “Every action that we take to cut emissions must be done while ensuring our economy remains competitive”, and a forthcoming review “will recommend ways to deliver the government’s carbon targets and ensure security of supply at minimum cost to both industry and domestic consumers.”

Tensions are apparent between decarbonisation targets, fuel cost, security, and a competitive economy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage

    Introduction The need to limit the harmful effects of climate change is a powerful motive for preventing carbon dioxide emissions from entering the atmosphere, and for removing CO2 that is already there, but there can be subsidiary aims associated with carbon capture, and there are many methods of accomplishing it. According to a definition published in 2014, “Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) encompasses methods and technologies to remove CO2 from … flue gas and from the atmosphere, followed by recycling the CO2 for utilization and determining safe and permanent storage options” (RCN-CCUS, 2014a). A definition of carbon capture and storage (CCS) used by Torvanger (2020) “refers to a group of technologies that reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from coal-fired or gas-fired power stations, or from process industries." The term sequestration is also used for the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere or from combustion gases, and permanent prevention of its...
Read more

Climate fiction and climate action

The interactions between climate fiction and environmental activism are the subject of a paper by Alacovska and Holt (2023). They describe environmental activism as “grassroots, decentralised social movements” which attempt to address issues of “inequality and systemic injustice arising from anthropogenic climate change, environmental degradation and ecological collapse” by means of non-hierarchical collective organising. The main object of their paper is to propose methods for future research, but here we will only draw on their introduction to the subject and its background. They believe that the popular genre of climate fiction influences climate activism , with the potential to stimulate the imagination and to energise the “quest for the attainment of better climate alternatives”. This stands in contrast with much writing on climate change, which is concerned with data and “mathematical prediction models for forecasting and comprehending the gravity of global environmental challeng...
Read more

Solar installations in the UK.

It is no doubt safest to assume that any correlation between an increase in solar generation in the UK and declining consumption of electrical energy from the grid is no more than that; nevertheless, a correlation is suggestive, and it could be instructive to pursue it further. To do this we will need to know more about solar installations in the UK. Ofgem, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets for the UK, publishes data on the total FiT PV installation capacity for each year. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/total-installed-capacity-kw-installation-type Capacity in kW, as of 30 September 2017 is given as follows (here rounded to the nearest thousand). Community                                       287,000 Domestic              ...
Read more