Can the government legally change the fourth carbon budget?
Chancellor George Osborne wants the UK to cut carbon more slowly in the 2020s. But with emissions cuts enshrined in law, would the chancellor have a legal basis for challenging UK carbon budgets?
Ministers have agreed a carbon budget which will halve the UK’s emissions by 2027, relative to their levels in 1990. The government is due to review the budget next year. Government advisor the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is likely to say this week that there is no reason to change it – paving the way for a political battle over carbon targets.
A series of carbon budgets
Under the Climate Change Act, the UK is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 per cent by 2050, compared to 1990 levels.
To achieve this, the government has set a series of five-year ‘carbon budgets‘. These require progressively lower emissions, cover the whole economy, and are supposed to guide emissions reductions down towards the overall target.
The government published the fourth carbon budget in 2011. Taking the CCC’s advice, ministers agreed that the budget set between 2023 and 2027 would see emissions reach half their 1990 levels.
But the government also said it would review the budget next year. According to the climate change act, a carbon budget can be altered after it’s been set only if there have been “ significant changes” since the decision was made.
What does that mean? Well, the Act says the government can take a number of things into account. Changes in the scientific evidence on climate change, economic circumstances, and the rate at which other countries are decarbonising can all be considered.
This last one is where attention is likely to focus. Osborne has warned that the UK acting faster than other European countries would damage competitiveness. This may be the argument that is used to push for a relaxation of the fourth carbon budget.
CCC says no big changes
So have any significant changes taken place since 2011? In November, the CCC released a report assessing developments in two areas: the evidence base underlying the science of climate change, and the level of action other countries are taking to reduce emissions.
On climate science, the committee concluded that there was no change. The latest scientific evidence confirms that without action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there is a very high risk that the world is going to be exposed to dangerous climate change, and the world still needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades.
The report also concluded that there hasn’t been any significant change in other country’s plans to reduce emissions since 2011.
The government says that the UK’s plans for reducing emissions from the power sector in particular should match the likely effect the EU emissions trading scheme would have on the sector. In other words, we should do the same as the rest of Europe.
That’s challenging to figure out at the moment, because European member states haven’t yet agreed what emissions reductions targets will be over the next decade.
To deal with this uncertainty, the CCC argues the UK’s emissions reductions budget should be matched to plans laid out in the European Commission’s ‘ low carbon roadmap‘, which suggests economy-wide emissions reductions of 40 percent by 2030. The CCC says the fourth carbon budget means the UK will be matching this level of ambition – more or less.
The EU’s member states haven’t yet agreed the 40 per cent target, but are likely to. The CCC says that if they don’t, the EU’s ‘default’ pathway for the ETS suggests only slightly more UK power sector emissions than the fourth carbon budget, so the difference is not significant.
So the CCC’s view is fairly clear – that the budget doesn’t need to be changed on either a scientific or ambition basis.
A cost effective pathway
The budget could also be altered for other reasons, however. Under the Climate Change Act, the government is legally obliged to ensure that emissions are reduced by 80 per cent by 2050, relative to 1990 levels. There isn’t any provision in the Act for changing that overall target, unless it’s repealed. But the interim budgets can be changed if they no longer represent the most affordable, competitive and manageable way of getting there.
In this week’s report, the committee will examine whether that calculation has changed. There have been changes to energy markets since the budget was set in 2011 that could have an impact. For example, one recent report suggested that the expansion in generation of electricity from shale gas could have an impact on EU gas prices. Calculations of the cost of shifting away from renewable power and towards renewables may have changed as a result.
Changes in the economics of energy around the world could mean there are now cheaper ways of getting to the 2050 target – which could mean the fourth carbon budget should be weakened. But, in legal terms, they have to be “significant” enough to justify a change.
We don’t know yet what the CCC will say about this, but it will pronounce on it in this week’s report. So far, the CCC has staunchly defended the budget in a series of reports and letters addressed to government ministers, so it doesn’t seem that likely that it will suggest the fourth carbon budget should be weakened. But it is possible.
The spectre of judicial review
If the CCC does advise the government to stick to the fourth carbon budget, couldn’t the government just go ahead and weaken the budget anyway? Theoretically, it could. But it’s legally obliged to take the committee’s advice into account. If it doesn’t do so, or it just ignores the committee’s advice without having a sound reason for doing so, that could be illegal.
If the government wanted to wriggle out of the climate change act – which Prime Minister David Cameron originally campaigned to be introduced – it could find itself in a tricky situation.
The decision could be open to judicial review, for example from green groups. The government has lost judicial reviews on energy issues in the past. Ministers will be concerned about the cost and embarrassment of defending a shaky decision in a review which might eventually mean the government is forced to reverse its position anyway.
George Osborne may not like the fourth carbon budget. But if the CCC comes out – again – in its defence this week, he may find that changing it presents a substantial political and legal challenge.