United Kingdom Climate Change Programme
The United Kingdom's Climate Change Programme was launched in November 2000 by the British government in response to its commitment agreed at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The 2000 programme was updated in March 2006 following a review launched in September 2004.
In 2008, the UK was the world's 9th greatest producer of man-made carbon emissions, producing around 1.8% of the global total generated from fossil fuels.
The aims of the programme are not only to cut all greenhouse gas emissions by the agreed 12.5% from 1990 levels in the period 2008 to 2012 (the international Kyoto commitment), but to go beyond this by cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2010.
When the original programme was published in 2000, it confirmed that UK emissions were already forecast to be around 15% lower by 2010.
As of March 2006, government projections were in line with the official energy policy of the United Kingdom) so that, by 2010, the UK will have reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by about 15-18% below 1990 levels, thus missing the government's internal target but achieving its target, with a projected reduction of emissions from the basket of all greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide) of about 23-25% from 1990 levels.
The stated strategies of the 2000 programme were to:
The following are among the actions taken to implement the strategy:
On 26 November 2008, after cross-party pressure over several years, led by environmental groups, the Climate Change Act became law. The Act puts in place a framework to achieve a mandatory 80% cut in the UK's carbon emissions by 2050 (compared to 1990 levels), with an intermediate target of between 34% by 2020 which would have risen in the event of a strong deal at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Introduced on 1 April 2002, the Renewables Obligation requires all electricity suppliers who supply electricity to end consumers to supply a set portion of their electricity from eligible renewables sources; a proportion that will increase each year until 2015 from a 3% requirement in 2002-2003, via 10.4% in 2010-2012 up to 15.4% by 2015-2016. The UK Government announced in the 2006 Energy Review an additional target of 20% by 2020-21. For each eligible megawatt hour of renewable energy generated, a tradable certificate called a renewables obligation certificate(ROC) is issued by OFGEM.
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