Supplementary memorandum from The Carbon
Trust
THE CARBON
GAP IN
BUSINESS AND
THE PUBLIC
SECTOR
In the business and public sectors it is becoming
clear that there is a carbon gap between what the current Climate
Change Programme (CCP) is expected to deliver and Governments
goal to reduce CO2 emissions by 20% versus 1990 by 2010. Changes
to Government's baseline projections (largely driven by higher
growth predictions, more coal burn and a small under delivery
of the existing CCP) mean that the existing package of measures
in the Climate Change Programme may no longer be sufficient to
keep the UK on track to deliver the expected absolute emission
levels.
Based on the existing CCP the overall gap is
around 16 million tonnes of CO2. However, this does not take into
account planned measures eg EU ETS, extending CCAs, increasing
CCA targets etc. Effective implementation of planned measures
would deliver an additional 10-12 million tonnes of CO2 leaving
a gap to 2010 of around 4-6 million tonnes of CO2. Clearly, this
gap could be still be closed by ramping-up existing measures and
introducing new ones. This should be a key issue for the review
of the CCP this year.
[Q149] Could you clarify what the 4.5 MtC saving
relates to, as it would appear to represent more than the savings
attributable to Action Energy (cited as being between 0.9 and
2.9 MtC)?
For the record the numbers we referred to in
our answers and in our Memorandum are in units of millions of
tonnes CO2, not carbon.
4.6 MtCO2 is the amount of carbon we estimate
our customers saved in 2002-03 in total by taking action to reduce
emissions. The range 0.6 to 2.9 MtCO2 is the proportion of the
4.6 MtCO2 we attribute to the impact of the Action Energy programme
in amongst the other policies and measures influencing companies
(eg CCL/CCA and UK ETS amongst others).
[Q151] It would also be helpful if you could give
some idea of the kind of targets you envisage setting.
Our performance targets for 2004-05 for CO2
savings and other metrics are due to be presented to our Board
for agreement in March as part of our annual Business Plan process.
Target setting is dependent on budget which for 2003-04 has not
yet been agreed with our funding partners.
[Q165] Is the Carbon Trust undertaking any formal
exercise to try to assess uptake of ECAs? If so we would be grateful
for more details and timescales.
Yes. As we explained in our oral evidence it
is not possible to directly measure the uptake of ECAs for a particular
application because of the design of the self-assessment tax form.
However, we have been carrying our market research with manufacturers
and investors to try to deduce uptake from other market indicators.
The research has been completed and we are currently analysing
the data. When we have the results (expected in April) we will
be working closely with Defra, Inland Revenue and the Treasury
to understand the lessons and develop the scheme accordingly.
March 2004
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