29th February 2024
The Fourth Carbon Budget covers the years 2023 to 2027. Each Budget is created well in advance to allow organisations and companies to plan the necessary changes that the Budget will require. The Fourth Carbon Budget was approved by the Government 2011. The Budget proposals included the following sectors: international aviation and shipping, agriculture, surface and other transport, energy and power supplies, industry, no residential (offices, shops etc).
The Climate Change Committee regularly reviews and reports to Parliament its assessment as to whether the plans and legislation put in place by the government, the plans and progress being made by businesses, and the uptake of lifestyle changes being made by the population, are on track to meet the Budget targets.
However drawing up a budget is often much harder easier than implementing one.
In its last report made in June 2023, the Climate Change Committee reported:
“A lack of urgency. While the policy framework has continued to develop over the past year, this is not happening at the required pace for future targets…
“Despite some positive steps to provide households with advice on reducing energy use in the last year, a coherent public engagement strategy on climate action is long overdue…
“Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero. As well as pushing forward strongly with new low-carbon industries, Net Zero also makes it necessary to move away from high-carbon developments…
“The need for a framework to manage airport capacity. There has been continued airport expansion in recent years, counter to our assessment that there should be no net airport expansion across the UK.”
For more information see –https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/2023-progress-report-to-parliament/
In other words there is much to be done at all levels if we are to meet the Fourth Carbon Budget.
The Green Tau 