UK will miss carbon targets by wider margins each year, study shows

Without radical policy measures, it will be impossible for the coalition to 'make a reality out of rhetoric'

Britain will miss government carbon targets by increasingly wide margins over the next 20 years unless it introduces radical policy measures, a report warned on Thursday.

The growth of CO2 emissions by airlines will work against any fall in commercial and household emissions, says Cambridge Econometrics. It notes targets to cut emissions by 20% from 1990 to 2010 were "decisively missed".

"This salutary lesson on the policy difficulty of making a reality out of rhetoric should be heeded by the coalition as it strives to be 'the greenest government yet'," it says in a forecast.

"On existing policies, included those inherited, endorsed and shortly to be put into effect by the coalition, the UK is set to miss the carbon budget targets in the first two budget periods (2008-2012 and 2013-2017) but by a wider margin in the third (2018- 2022) and especially the fourth (2023-2027)," argues the consultancy, a private company owned by a charity and chaired by the Cambridge University academic, Terry Barker.

• Carbon emissions
• Green politics
• Climate change

Terry Macalister

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/16/uk-miss-carbon-targets

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