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UK emission targets

The UK has lead the world by setting strong greenhouse gas reduction targets. Emissions since the 1990 baseline are shown to be encouraging: we have already exceeded our Kyoto Protocol target, by twice as much as the required 12.5%. The cuts have been most effective in gases like methane and nitrous oxide. Carbon dioxide emissions have reduced by one-tenth but we now have a big challenge to bring this down to meet our mid-century targets.

There are currently 3 binding targets for UK emissions reduction:

• the Kyoto Protocol, which gives us an internationally agreed target of a 12.5% cut by 2012 ;
• an 80% cut by 2050, which was made law in the Climate Change Act 2008;
• and an "interim target", of a 34% cut by 2020, which was made legally binding in the April 2009 Budget.

The target emission cuts are all compared against our emissions in 1990 - the "baseline year". The cuts are against our emissions of a selection of greenhouse gases (GHGs), as discussed in the next section: these include carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane and nitrous oxide. The following graph shows our how our recent emissions compare against these targets. Notice that:

• Our 1990 baseline was equivalent to 778 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (778 Mt CO₂-eq).
• We have already met our Kyoto targets, in fact we exceeded the 12.5% cut in the year 2000 (12 years early).
• By 2008 we had cut emissions by 20% to 620 Mt CO₂-eq.
• 2009 emissions were down to 566 Mt CO₂-eq, the sharp fall being attributed to the economic recession.
• Provisional figures for 2010 (in gray) bring emissions up by 2.8% to 582 Mt CO₂-eq. DECC has attributed this principally to an increase in residential gas use - a consequence of the cold winter - and switching away from nuclear to coal for electricity generation.
• It is worth noting that there is a continuous process of improvement the estimates of our emissions data, hence the dataset is revised every year.

The UK emissions data (1990-2010) are sourced from NAEI (the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory), which now reports statistics to DECC (the Department of Energy and Climate Change).

Our greenhouse gas "basket"

The Kyoto Protocol identified a "basket" of six greenhouse gases, considered to be the most potent and prolific. The following graph shows how these are split in UK emissions.

• Notice that all greenhouse gases are already converted into "CO₂ equivalent" (e.g. methane is 21 times more potent than CO₂ so the actual emissions of 5 million tonnes in 1990 is equivalent to 105 million tonnes CO₂).
• Even taking these factors into account, you can see that CO₂ is by far the biggest contributor to our emissions. In 2008 it accounted for 85% of our greenhouse gas emissions.
• Since 1990, CO₂ emissions have reduced by 11% (by 64 Mt CO₂-eq). The emissions equivalent for all the other gases (particularly methane and nitrous oxide) was cut by over 48% (by 99 Mt CO₂-eq). In fact the reduction in emissions of these other gases was approximately 60% of our total GHG emissions reduction to 2008.

What does this mean for UK CO₂ targets?

If we reduced the other gases down to zero emissions, we would be allowed to emit more CO₂ and still meet our Climate Change Act 80% emissions reduction target. However, there is not much room for manoeuvre, as CO₂ is such a dominant part of or greenhouse gas basket.

• In the 1990 baseline year, CO₂ accounted for 76% of total UK GHG emissions (590 Mt CO₂-eq). The other gases accounted for 192 Mt CO₂-eq.
• In 2050 our total emissions target is 156 Mt CO₂-eq. If this was all carbon dioxide, it would be equivalent to a weak target of a 74% cut in CO₂ levels compared to 1990.
• It is clear to see that we really must focus hard on reducing CO₂ as soon as possible.