UK unlikely to meet targets on cutting CO2 - report
Date: 05-Feb-02
Country: UK
"The achievement of the government's own 20 percent reduction target looks increasingly unattainable," the report from economic forecaster Cambridge Econometrics said.
Increased coal use is set to be compounded by increased demand for electricity prompted by falling electricity prices.
Britain aims to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, which include CO2, by 23 percent on 1990 levels by 2010. This is almost double the target of 12.5 percent to which the UK is committed under the Kyoto protocol.
The report said there was a substantial increase in carbon emissions in 2000 and 2001 because of the rise in coal use for power generation prompted by increases in the price of cleaner-burning natural gas.
Government's plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, blamed by many scientists for contributing to global warming, were partly based on the assumption that electricity producers would continue to embrace clean-burning gas-fired power stations.
But the "dash for gas" - the definining characteristic of the last decade which saw gas use shoot up - has stalled in the face of soaring wholesale gas prices.
Government figures show that in the first quarter of 2001 coal consumption rose 17.4 percent against 3.6 percent for gas.
The Cambridge Econometrics report also said the introduction last March of a new wholesale power trading market NETA, which has cut electricity prices is encouraging increased consumption.
As a result CO2 emissions from households, far from falling below their 1990 levels, will now be 19 percent higher in 2010.
The only sector which is confidently expected to make "a significant contribution to carbon savings in the long run" is industry, the report says.