Britain's impossible climate target
June 10th 2008

Both the UK and the EU are set to miss their own global climate goals if they continue to follow current policy, says a new report by leading London-based, pan- European think tank, the Stockholm Network, ahead of UN Climate Change talks in Bonn.

The UK, the EU and the UN all have a declared goal of avoiding more than 2°C of warming – or no more than 3°C under the latest proposed revisions. Yet according to the findings of a Stockholm Network report, Carbon Scenarios: Blue Sky Thinking for a Green Future, the current approach of regulating emissions will almost certainly miss even the easier 3°C target unless there is a radical change in policy in favour of a global, market-oriented mechanism for dealing with carbon emissions.

According to the report, which outlines a set of three climate change policy scenarios developed by a panel of experts from across the ideological and professional spectrum, even a successful elaboration of current policy will breach the 3°C threshold.

Based on the report’s key findings, the Stockholm Network draws the following conclusions for policymakers:

• While the UK and the EU will probably just manage to meet their goal of reducing emissions by 20% by 2020, the bulk of future emissions will come from the developing world. However without the assistance of the developed world, they will not realistically be able to curb their emissions. We need to create a framework that is transparent and credible in order to bring this about.

• Discussions at the UNFCCC meeting in Bonn are therefore crucial and need to move beyond the flaws inherent in the Clean Development Mechanism and Joint

Implementation. UK representatives in Bonn must work to get a substantial outcome from side-meetings on technology and adaptation assistance to the developing world. It is only with this assistance that developing countries are likely to do what is needed to meet the UK’s global goals.

• The Stockholm Network, however, argues that only a new approach in policy will deliver even the 3°C goal. So what is needed?

- A simple policy of a global cap on the production of carbon (in other words an upstream cap). This will lead to a reduction in the amount of carbon produced and will make clean technologies more commercially attractive;

- This upstream cap, as found in the Stockholm Network’s Step Change scenario, delivers transparency about carbon pricing to business and more importantly, provides substantial revenue to incentivise developing countries to come on board;

- As it allows markets to allocate carbon globally through the price mechanism, this system would be both much cheaper to administer than existing proposals (individual national emissions caps), and will lead to a much more efficient allocation of carbon. It is therefore likely to lead to higher economic growth than the current approach of national emissions trading would achieve.

“When the panel of experts set out to develop a set of scenarios about climate

change, the general public thought there was a trade-off between economic growth and carbon reduction. In fact, the scenario that delivers the most carbon reduction, also, delivers long-term economic growth by replacing a pick ‘n’ mix of complicated, confusing and opaque policies with a clear, long-term carbon price”, concludes report author Paul Domjan.

For more information www.stockholm-network.org

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