This week the UK’s Climate Change Committee published its Seventh Carbon Budget. Established as part of the 2008 Climate Change Act, the Committee advises the government on how to meet its net zero targets. One of its tasks is to publish carbon budgets, which provide advice to the government on a cap on greenhouse gas emissions over a five-year period, taking into account various economic, technological, sociological and environmental factors. These budgets are interim targets on the path to net zero by 2050. The Seventh Carbon Budget is for the period 2038 to 2042 – we are currently in the Fourth Carbon Budget period (2023–2027). The government has until 30 June 2026 to pass legislation that sets a legally binding cap on emissions for 2038 to 2042. It can choose whether or not to accept the Committee’s recommended cap over this period, which is 535 MtCO2e (including emissions from international aviation and shipping).
The Committee recommends that in order to reach net zero by 2050, the UK should cut its emissions to 87% below 1990 levels by 2040. It estimates that the cost of getting to net zero will be around 0.2% of GDP per year on average until the Seventh Carbon Budget period, when it expects that this investment will lead to net savings.
Greenhouse gas removals will be a key part of getting to net zero by 2050. In its “Balanced Pathway” scenario, the Committee estimates that engineered removals will start to add to emissions reductions in the UK around 2028, accounting for -21.3 MtCO2e by 2040 and -35.8 MtCO2e in 2050. It expects bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) to comprise most removals, with the addition of direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS), biochar and enhanced rock weathering. By 2050, engineered removals will play an important role in counterbalancing residual emissions, e.g. in aviation.
Commenting on the Budget, Dr Steve Smith, Executive Director of CO2RE said:
The CCC has produced a detailed, comprehensive and transparent analysis of how the UK can get to net zero emissions.
There is a good news story that emerges from the CCC’s new report. It involves increasing clarity – and cost-effectiveness – of the path to decarbonising energy supplies. It’s also a story of new options emerging, to reduce emissions further and to scale up greenhouse gas removal. These now include biochar and enhanced rock weathering, building on the innovation being done in the GGR Demonstrators Programme. A broadening set of options gives greater confidence that net zero can be achieved, rapidly and sustainably.
It’s worth remembering the climate science underpinning net zero: global temperature will keep rising for as long as we emit CO2. If we don’t get to net zero, we won’t stabilise temperature. The next step is for government to put the plans and policies in place to deliver, including on greenhouse gas removal.
You can read a longer analysis of the Budget here. Learn more about different types of greenhouse gas removal in these short documentaries on the Demonstrator projects.
Photo by Matthew Waring on Unsplash.
