Implications of the party leaders’ climate pledge for the Committee’s work

On February 14th 2015, the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition published a joint statement highlighting the threat of climate change, the opportunity for the UK in responding to it and the importance of 2015 in accelerating action globally. We welcome the clarity which this statement provides, continuing the cross-party tradition of the Climate Change Act.

The statement made specific pledges that reaffirm the framework for the Committee on Climate Change’s upcoming advice on the fifth carbon budget. In particular we will reflect this in our advice in the following ways:

We will base our recommendations on the criteria laid out in the Climate Change Act, in line with our statutory duty and the pledge “to agree carbon budgets in accordance with the Climate Change Act.”
As required by the Climate Change Act, we will propose a fifth carbon budget that prepares for the 2050 target of at least an 80% reduction in UK emissions relative to 1990. This is in line with the pledge “To seek a fair, strong, legally binding, global climate deal which limits temperature rises to below 2°C” – reflecting that the 2050 target was designed as a minimum practical contribution to such a deal.
We will also consider how the level of the budget affects the ability of the UK to “ensure others act with us”.
We will use the existing legislated budgets as the starting point for the fifth budget advice. We note that meeting the fourth carbon budget through reducing emissions domestically in the UK[1], will require that policies are strengthened.[2] This is consistent with the pledge “To accelerate the transition to a competitive, energy efficient low carbon economy”.
In line with the conclusions of our previous analysis[3] and the pledge “to end the use of unabated coal for power generation”, we will continue to assume that coal generation without carbon capture and storage does not play a role beyond the 2020s.

In line with the requirements in the Climate Change Act we will publish our advice on the fifth carbon budget by the end of 2015.

[1] HM Government (2011) The Carbon Plan: Delivering our low carbon future, (3.24-3.26)
[2] CCC (2014) Meeting Carbon Budgets: 2014 Progress Report to Parliament
[3] CCC (2010) The Fourth Carbon Budget