Minsters warned over failure to cut greenhouses gases

There needs to be a significant acceleration in measures such as teaching people how to “eco-drive” and insulating lofts and cavity walls if the UK is to meet its targets to cut emissions, the Government’s climate change advisers said.

And Ministers must commit to ambitious targets for insulating houses as part of the new “green deal” scheme, which aims to finance the upfront costs of improving the energy efficiency of homes.

In its third report on the progress the UK is making on tackling global warming, the Committee on Climate Change said emissions rose by three per cent last year, mostly as a result of people using more energy for heating in the cold weather.

Without the cold winter there was no improvement, emissions effectively staying the same as the previous year.

The UK is only within its targets for cutting climate emissions in the first five-year “carbon budget”, currently under way, because of the recession which reduced emissions by nine per cent in 2009, the committee said.

But to cut greenhouse gases by 50 per cent on 1990 levels by 2025, which the Government signed up to when it agreed the level of the fourth carbon budget in the 2020s last month, emissions need to be falling at a rate of three per cent a year.

The Committee on Climate Change’s chairman Lord Adair Turner said: “The step-change that we have previously highlighted has not yet been achieved.

“Although we can meet the first carbon budget, this is mainly due to the recession.”

Lord Turner added: “It is crucial that Government sets out detailed policies to support power sector decarbonisation and energy efficiency in homes and businesses. The successful implementation of these policies will determine our ability to meet carbon budgets.”

The committee urged the Government to commit to ambitious targets to insulate all lofts and cavity walls by 2015 and two million solid walls by 2020 as part of the green deal, and that energy companies should be “on the hook” to deliver on the goals.

Responding to the report, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne said: “As we come out of recession the coalition’s determined to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, which means a permanent shift to low carbon has to be locked into our economy in good times and bad.

“The coalition’s once-in-a-generation reforms of the electricity market, the Green Deal and the Green Investment Bank shows we’re serious about making the long-term structural changes that are vital to cut emissions and keep the lights on.”