UK climate body urges govt to step up emissions cuts

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain needs to accelerate its strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions to have any hope of meeting its carbon reduction commitments, Britain's chief climate change adviser said Monday.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC), which advises the British government on cutting emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, said the recession exaggerated its progress toward meeting its carbon budgets and could slow efforts to drive long-term cuts.

Britain and other countries have embarked on ambitious targets to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gases. World leaders will meet in Copenhagen in December to agree on a new deal to curb the effects of climate change.

"It is crucial (...) that government focuses its efforts on developing and implementing policies that will lead to deep emissions cuts in the next five years and beyond," the CCC said.

Adair Turner, the committee's chairman, will present the group's full report later Monday in central London.

Most of the emissions reductions in recent years have centred on gases other than one of the most dangerous -- carbon dioxide (CO2), the CCC said.

CO2 reductions averaged 0.6 percent a year from 2003 to 2007. This needs to increase to 2-3 percent a year to meet the government's carbon budgets, the committee said.

Although the recession depressed economic activity and emissions fell by 2 percent in 2008, this trend will not continue once economic growth resumes.

The recession also caused European Union industrial emissions to slump, which reduced the carbon price in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and has undermined incentives for investment in low-carbon technologies.

Finance available for investment in new wind generation capacity was also restricted. UK capacity needs to reach 23 gigawatts (GW) by 2020 to meet EU-wide targets.

ACTION NEEDED

To reduce uncertainty in the carbon market, ideally the EU needs to tighten its cap on emissions in the EU ETS beyond 2020 and introduce an auction reserve price, the Committee advised.

Britain can help underpin the price of CO2 by introducing a tax which adjusts according to fluctuations in the EU ETS.

To get wind capacity to 23 GW, Britain needs to consider loan guarantees to banks so that finance is available for wind projects over the next couple of years.

Currently, up to 7 GW of new wind power projects have gained planning permission but have not yet been built.

New investments to ease bottlenecks in Britain's electricity transmissions network are needed by 2011 so wind power construction can begin in 2012.

A national policy on nuclear power generation is needed by the Spring of 2010 to support proposals for nuclear new-builds going through the planning process.

Among the committee's recommendations on improving household energy efficiency, it advocated "whole house" energy audits with a follow-up package including installation and financing to help households reduce emissions.

In April the government announced all new coal-fired power generators need to apply the pioneering carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology within five years of 2020 and said it would support up to four demonstration projects.

Funding needs to be in place in the next two years for the four projects, with more funding by 2015 to support investments from 2018, the CCC advised.

(Additional reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Andy Bruce)