Government advisers: Aviation and shipping must be part of UK climate targets - Green Business

Posted - April 5, 2012 - By Will Nichols - Green Business

Committee on Climate Change says continuing to exclude the sectors would lead to serious doubts about government's low carbon commitment.

Any action other than bringing aviation and shipping emissions into the UK's carbon budgets would represent a retreat from the country's climate objectives, the government's emissions watchdog will say today.
A new report by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says the advent of emissions caps in the two sectors means there is no longer any valid reason why the government should continue to exclude them from the UK's rolling program of carbon budgets when it makes a final decision on the issue later this year.
Shipping and aviation combined contribute around six per cent of total global emissions, but both are expected to rise substantially in the coming years.
They were left out of the 2008 Climate Change Act, which mandates an 80 per cent cut in emissions by 2050, due to the complexity of estimating and monitoring shipping and aviation emissions at a UK level.
Instead, the key domestic sectors of power, buildings and surface transport were given a higher target of cutting emissions by 85 per cent by 2050 to make up for the absence of shipping and aviation emissions.

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