The Government is not doing enough to get businesses more energy efficient – especially small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – the UK climate change watchdog said today.
The
Committee on Climate Change (CCC) called for "a step change" in the pace of
carbon emissions reductions and said "significant progress" was required in particular to improve e
nergy efficiency among
SMEs, as well as to insulate homes and encourage greener forms of
transport. The Committee warned that if the UK did not take radical action it would fail to meet its target to
reduce emissions by 34 per cent by 2020.
The CCC made its comments as it launched its 2nd progress report to Parliament on meeting carbon budgets in the UK.
The watchdog said emissions of greenhouse gases had fallen over the past year by 8.6 per cent but this decline was mainly down to recession and energy price rises, and not as a result of the implementation of measures to reduce emissions. It said there was a real risk emissions would go back up as the economy returned to growth and that carbon budgets would not be met.
"The recession has created the illusion that progress is being made to reduce emissions," said Lord Adair Turner, chair of the CCC. "Although emissions have declined substantially, our analysis shows that this is almost wholly due to a reduction in economic activity and not from new measures being introduced to tackle climate change."
Limited progress
The CCC said "very limited progress" had been made during 2009 on improving energy efficiency among
SMEs and that this all important sector of the UK economy would need to be heavily targeted over the next decade to meet carbon budgets. Small and medium-sized businesses make up the majority of businesses in the UK and account for half of its turnover. They also account for 99.9 per cent of workplaces and 68 per cent of the workforce in the UK.
Other areas where a faster rate of progress was required going forward included renewable heat, loft and cavity wall insulation, where the CCC recommended the pace should double in coming years to 1.2 million annually.
One bright spot last year, according to the Committee, was in new car efficiency, but the watchdog warned that such progress could reverse once the economy returned to growth. It recommended that the Government should increase the number of electric cars on the road from the current 2000 to over one and half million by 2020.
New policies
The CCC said the Government needed to devise new policies to engage businesses, energy companies, local authorities and private landlords to make
buildings more energy efficient.
It also called for reform of the electricity market to ensure incentives for investing in low carbon energy generation and said there was a "strong case" for introducing a minimum price on carbon.
Meanwhile, the Committee recommended that agriculture, which accounts for seven per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, should be tackled through a "full range of policies", including a possible tax to encourage more efficient use of fertiliser. This it said could improve still further the current CO2 reduction target of three million tonnes by 2020 from this sector.
Despite the CCC’s warnings regarding meeting the UK’s target to reduce emissions by 34 per cent, relative to 1990 levels, within the next decade, it said it was considering whether the 2020 target should be raised to 42 per cent.
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Related links:
www.theccc.org.uk