The United Kingdom government’s adviser on global warming has said an ambition to cut carbon emissions by half is affordable and mustn’t be watered down.
“There is no reason to change the budget,” John Gummer, chairman of the Committee on Climate Change and a member of the parliament’s upper house, said in London.
Bloomberg newsagency reports the advice was included in a report that concludes a two-part review of Britain’s target to reduce emissions by half by 2025 from 1990 levels.
The goal caused friction between ministers when it was set in 2011, and the impact of low-carbon policies on energy prices has been a political flashpoint in recent months.
The government has just moved some costs for energy to general taxation from customer utility bills to temper rising charges.
Politicians will reappraise their commitment to fighting global warming as they face elections in 2015, Citigroup said.
“The current climate change legislation and targets were committed to at a time of consistent economic growth and increasing household incomes,” Sofia Savvantidou, a Citigroup analyst in London, said in a note.
The removal of some environmental levies from energy bills “indicates to us that the current path to decarbonisation is unaffordable.”
The report examined whether the carbon target was affordable, if it was feasible to deploy enough renewable energy, and whether companies were moving manufacturing overseas.
The government will decide next year whether to keep the 2025 goal.
While it isn’t obliged to follow the committee’s advice, it must spell out its reasons if it fails to do so.
Bloomberg reports Conservative politician Tim Yeo said in a meeting of parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee, which scrutinises government, that he thought the Energy Department would favour keeping the target while other departments would act differently.
Energy Secretary Ed Davey agreed “a reasoned and reasonable observer might draw that conclusion.”
When the goal was set, Business Secretary Vince Cable wrote to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to say he had “a number of concerns” about it.
Maintaining the target would probably bring total savings of US$180 billion at current prices through 2050 because necessary low-carbon investments will be steadily ramped up rather than slowing in the 2020s before having to accelerate again in the 2030s, according to the report.
Britain charts its emission cuts in five-year carbon budgets.
Under its fourth budget, which runs 2023 through 2027, average annual emissions would be half the 1990 level.
The Climate Change Committee said in November that the UK had no economic or scientific cause to weaken that target.
The UK has a legally binding target to lower carbon output 80 per cent by mid-century.
