‘Progress on gas emissons stalling’

PROGRESS on cutting greenhouse gas emissions from homes, transport and industry has stalled, the Government’s climate advisers have warned.

The UK’s emissions have fallen by an average of 4.5% a year in the last three years and are now 38% below 1990 levels, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said in its annual report on progress on tackling climate change.

But the reduction has come almost exclusively from the electricity sector, where Government policies have driven an increase in renewable power and cuts to polluting coal generation.

Across the rest of the economy there has only been a 1% reduction a year, the committee said.

Annual rates of installing insulation in homes have fallen by as much as 90% for some measures in the last couple of years compared to the period 2008 to 2012.

Low carbon heating technology such as heat pumps and district heating schemes which use low-carbon technology still meet only a tiny proportion of demand for heating.

Emissions rose in the past year in the transport sector, while there is “minimal evidence” of progress in industry and agriculture, the committee said.

While progress has been made in some areas, such as extending funding for offshore wind and electric vehicles, there has been no movement in other sectors including low cost onshore wind and solar and energy efficiency.