The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has issued an initial response to the Government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan and ‘Jet Zero’ consultation. The plan, promised for some time, sets out how the UK Government proposes to tackle emissions from the most polluting sector of the economy on the path to delivering a Net Zero UK by 2050.
Mike Thompson, the CCC’s Chief Economist, said:
“We’re pleased to see another step forward in the Government’s commitment to deliver a Net Zero UK. The Transport Decarbonisation Plan and aviation consultation are two of seven key strategies that we highlighted in our recent progress report as overdue. The overall ambition, including phasing out the sale of diesel trucks by 2040 and Net Zero aviation by 2050, looks in line with our recommendations. We are particularly pleased to see proposals for a Zero Emission Vehicle mandate, which we’ve recommended as key to reducing emissions from UK transport since the Net Zero target was set. Meeting Net Zero will require action on demand for transport as well as its supply. As ever, the devil will be in the detail and we look forward to scrutinising the Government’s proposals fully and carefully while we await delivery of other key roadmaps on heating, hydrogen, food, biomass, the Treasury’s Net Zero Review, and the Government’s overall Net Zero Strategy.”
Notes to editors
- The Transport Decarbonisation Plan was published by the Department for Transport on Wednesday 14 July. It is available on the Department’s website.
- The plan includes a raft of policies including measures to ban the sale of new large diesel trucks weighing more than 26 tonnes by 2040, with smaller diesel trucks banned from 2035. The Plan also includes new public consultations on initiatives to reduce emissions from transport, including on the ‘ZEV’ (or zero emissions vehicles) mandate – which would see car makers having to produce a minimum number of electric vehicles for sale.
- Surface transport is currently the largest emitting sector of the UK economy, making up 23% of total UK territorial emissions in 2019 or 113 MtCO2e. Emissions from this sector have been broadly flat over the past decade, falling just 1% between 2009 and 2019. They need to fall by 90% by 2050 to meet the economy-wide Net Zero target.
- The CCC set out its view of progress in decarbonising the transport sector in its recent 2021 Progress Report to Parliament.
Topics
