Report: UK on course to miss 2020 renewables and carbon targets

The new government must act urgently and decisively to ensure the UK meets its 2020 goal of reducing carbon emissions by 34 per cent, according to a new report from Cambridge Econometrics that today warned the country is currently on track to miss its ambitious emissions and renewable energy targets.

The latest edition of UK Energy and the Environment report from the Cambridge-based consultancy calls on the new coalition to act swiftly to deliver new policies that will allow the UK to meet the statutory goal of a 34 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020.

It also predicts the UK will fall three percentage points short of its goal of generating 10 per cent of the country's electricity from renewable sources by the end of this year, and warns that based on current trends it will fall well short of the 2020 target of generating 15 per cent of energy from renewables.

Given that the UK is unlikely to deliver a rapid increase in renewable heat and renewable fuel capacity, the previous government estimated that in order to meet the EU renewable energy target the UK would need to source between 30 and 40 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

However, the Cambridge Econometrics study predicts that if electricity demand grows at between 0.75 per cent and one per cent each year to 2020 and fossil fuel prices remain relatively high, then renewables will account for just 16.5 per cent of the UK's electricity mix by 2020 – well short of the target of between 30 and 40 per cent.

As a result of this shortfall, the report forecasts the UK will come close to achieving its carbon budgets in the first two budget periods, which run from 2008 to 2012 and 2013 to 2017, but will fall short of its third carbon budget running from 2018 to 2022 and miss its legally-binding goal of a 34 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 by around 2 percentage points.

"The incoming government will need urgently not only to set out the details of the ambitious carbon-reduction policies it has inherited, but also move swiftly to their implementation if the UK is to achieve the statutory goal of a 34 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020," said the report's co-editor Paul Ekins.

The report argues that the government will have to deliver new policies to increase the use of renewable energy to generate and transport fuel if it is to meet the carbon targets.

"If the incoming government puts in place effective policies that promote the increased use of renewable energy in transport and for heat supply, and if the vehicle fuel efficiency targets in road transport are extended beyond 2015 as currently proposed, it seems quite likely that non-traded sector emissions will move more in line with the carbon-budget target in the third 2018-22 period," the report concludes.

However, both the renewable heat and transport sectors have been largely neglected compared to the level of policy support for renewable electricity, and no new incentives are expected to drive adoption of green heat and transport technologies until next year at the earliest.