As widely anticipated, the UK's independent Climate Change Committee will today recommend that the government should upgrade the carbon emission reduction targets for 2050 included in the climate change bill from 60 to 80 per cent.
The committee also advises that emissions from international shipping and aviation should be included in the targets – making compliance with the legally binding goals an order of magnitude more challenging.
In addition, it will further recommend that other greenhouse gases besides carbon dioxide, such as methane and nitrous oxide, be accounted for in the targets.
Speaking at the Labour Party conference last month, Gordon Brown said he had instructed the independent committee to look at the feasibility of an 80 per cent target, comments that were interpreted in several quarters as a signal that he would go along with the committee's recommendations.
Speaking to The Guardian newspaper, committee chairman Lord Turner of Ecchinswell said that because aviation and shipping will struggle to deliver deep emission cuts, the rest of the economy will have to effectively abandon the use of fossil fuels by 2030 to ensure the 80 per cent reduction is met.
"We have to almost totally decarbonise the power sector by 2030, well before 2050," he said.
Environmental and green business groups have repeatedly called for an 80 per cent target, arguing that the latest climate change science indicates that a 60 per cent reduction in emissions will fail to curb the risk of dangerous levels of climate chnage.
They have also argued that adopting such stringent targets will strengthen the UK's position in international climate change negotiations, allowing the government to prove to developing nations that it is serious about cutting UK emissions before calling on other countries to do the same.
"The UK has a unique opportunity to set an example to the rest of the world in tackling climate change," said David Nussbaum, chief executive of WWF-UK. " It is up to the government to grasp that opportunity with both hands."
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