Will the UK’s New Government Meet Carbon Reduction Goals?
Posted by Kelly Smith on Wed, Jun 02, 2010
Britain's former Prime Minister Gordon Brown stepped down in early May when his Labour government did not win a majority of seats in Parliament in the May 6 election. For the first time since World War II, no party won an outright majority, so a coalition was formed by the two leading parties. Britain's new government is a coalition government formed by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and Liberal Democrat deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
The UK's governmental shift comes just as the news has been released by Cambridge Econometrics that although Britain is set to meet preliminary carbon dioxide reduction targets due to the economic downturn and a switch from coal power to nuclear power, it is going to fall short of its goal to reduce carbon emissions 34 percent by 2020 if nothing changes. Carbon emissions in the UK are decreasing, but they are decreasing by a smaller percentage as the economy improves.
In order to meet its 2020 carbon budget, the UK's new coalition government will need to continue to invest in both energy efficiency and renewable energy in many sectors of the economy. In the meantime, Chancellor George Osborne has begun to outline the financial budget cuts which the new government finds necessary to chip away at the British deficit. Spending cuts worth 6.2 billion British pounds are proposed. It is unclear whether the new government is committed to investment in green power innovations or whether the government will follow through on the Labour government's green investment bank. Some experts believe that the government can reach climate change targets without cuts if they focus investment in and regulations on the transportation industry and the heating industry.