The UK’s Climate Change Act of 2008 mandated a reduction of 80% in emissions of all greenhouse gases by 2050. Today the outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May announced that the Act will be ammended to make the UK a net zero emitter by mid-century. If passed, this will be the first legislation in the G7 to require zero emissions by that date. Note this includes all greenhouse gases including methane, not just carbon dioxide.
This is substantially the recommendation of the all-party Advisory Committee on Climate change last month. One big difference is the proposal to include a reviewal of the target after 5 years. This has been sneaked in so a future government could renage on the target ifinsufficient other countries make substantial progress on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. The upside is that the group with the most at risk will be involved in helping direct the action needed.
The commitment to net zero greenhouse gas emissions was described as “historic” by leading figures. But the UK is not yet on track to meet its 2025 and 2030 goals, so a huge transformation of energy, transport and buildings is urgently required.
Thirty young people, aged 15-24, will assess how this should be done, starting in July. They will present their recommendations to ministers after the summer. The Youth Steering Group was founded in February to provide perspectives on all issues and has now been tasked with examining the climate, wildlife and plastic crises.
Young people striking from school in the UK and around the world have pushed public concern over the climate emergency to record levels. Following the visit in April by the first school striker, Greta Thunberg, the environment has risen to third in the public’s concerns, with only Brexit and health ranked higher.
With the collapse of a proposed programme to replace the UK’s aging nuclear power stations as 5 of the 6 planned have been cancelled, the guarantee of providing a constant “base load” will gain importance. The country is at the forefront of off-shore wind power however a development in Portugal may point the way forward to “distributed storage” as well as distributed generation of electricity.
The small Atlantic island of Porto Santo is to trial a scheme whereby electric car batteries are charged using solar power during the day and then feed into the grid at night. The cars have technology to ensure that there will be an adequate charge for the next day’s travel. This is a reversal of the “charge at home” model. Instead you would, perhaps drive to work and plug into a solar panel or charging point using renewables. Fully charged, you drive home to plug in the car to provide electricity for either your home or to sell back to the grid.
Very small islands are the ideal test bed for such ideas. The Orkney islands use surplus electricity from a wind farm and a community on-shore wind plant to produce hydrogen for use in vehicles, including it’s planned the ferry that serves the islands. Hydrogen will also play an important part in replacing natural gas for domestic use.
Note that I did emphasise all greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide is the best known of course. The UK emissions are now back at pre-1900 levels however consideration has to be given to other gases. While methane has a far shorter life than CO2, it also has a much higher greenhouse effect. Simply burning off this gas produced in land fill sites is not going to be enough, especially as all that energy is going to waste.