Opinion
UK climate change policy – first mover advantage for what benefit?
Simon W Holden reports on how the UK is attempting to lead the way in the fight against global warming.
Simon W Holden habla sobre cómo el Reino Unido está intentando liderar la lucha contra el calentamiento global.
Simon W. Holden berichtet darüber, wie Großbritannien versucht, die Vorreiterrolle einzunehmen im Kampf gegen die globale Erwärmung.
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lobal initiatives to tackle climate change are gathering pace. Governments across the world are increasingly less likely to adopt a ‘wait and see’ strategy and are
eager to be at the forefront of plans to head off a looming environmental crisis (one need only have seen Al Gore’s well publicised documentary An Inconvenient Truth to get an idea of the potential crisis facing us all). Scientists believe that to escape the most
devastating effects of climate change, average global temperatures must rise no more than 2°C. Te UK Government has published two White Papers called Te UK Low Carbon Transition Plan and Te UK Renewable Energy Strategy 2009, in which it announced that on current levels of emissions global temperatures could rise by up to 6°C by the end of this century. Such a rise in temperatures would be potentially catastrophic. Te UK is attempting to lead the way in the fight against global warming. In November last year, it became the first country in the world to impose legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions (or ‘carbon budgets’) when it introduced the Climate Change Act. Te first budgets set by the Government require a 34 per cent reduction on 1990 carbon emission levels by 2020 (1990 being the baseline year for
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comparison purposes, which was accepted by a Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). Te sheer enormity of a 34 per cent reduction is put into perspective when one realises it is the equivalent to approximately six tonnes of carbon dioxide per person resident in the UK. Te Transition Plan details the UK’s encouraging progress towards reaching its carbon budgets; current greenhouse gas emission levels are around 21 per cent less than 1990 levels (nearly double what was promised at Kyoto); equivalent to cutting emissions entirely from four cities the size of London. Also, the Transition
Plan contains a detailed list of over 40 policies designed to achieve the necessary further reductions. Te targets are very ambitious and the White Papers represent a wide-ranging attempt to deliver. Via the Climate
“The UK’s Renewable Energy Strategy is geared towards meeting the European Union target of having 15 per cent of all energy produced by renewables by 2020.”
Simon W Holden, Faegre & Benson LLP.
Change Act, the Government committed itself to publishing a plan detailing how it intends to meet these carbon budgets and, ultimately, tackle climate change; culminating in the release of the plan. Te Transition
Plan lays out a five pronged strategy, which is comprised of: (1) protecting the public from immediate risk; (2) preparing for the future; (3) limiting the severity of future climate change;
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