The UK's existing carbon budgets represent the minimum level of emissions reduction required to avoid a global 2 degrees temperature rise - regarded as a dangerous threshold - and the UK's leading climate scientists do not believe loosening the budgets is warranted. The current (2008-2012) and second (2013-2017) carbon budgets will be easily met because of the recession. But the UK is not on track to meet the third (2018-22) and fourth budgets (2023-2027), because not enough progress is being made in decarbonising transport, buildings and heat production. The Government's Carbon Plan - which set milestones for five key Government Departments to cut carbon - is out of date without any quarterly progress reports published yet. The Green Deal has also had low take-up rates so far. The Government should set a 2030 decarbonisation target for the power sector now, rather than in 2016 as the Energy Bill sets out. The Government should also reconsider placing a statutory duty on local authorities to produce low-carbon plans for their area. The current low-carbon price in the EU ETS - the result of the economic downturn of recent years and over-allocation of emissions permits - also means that that scheme will not deliver the emissions reductions envisaged when the fourth carbon budget was set. Without any tightening of the EU ETS increased pressure will therefore be placed on the non-traded sector, which will have to produce further emissions reductions to cover the emerging gap left by the traded sector

Climate change resulting from CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions poses a huge threat to human welfare. To contain that threat, the world needs to cut emissions by about 50 per cent by 2050, and to start cutting emissions now. A global agreement to take action is vital. A fair global deal will require the UK to cut emissions by at least 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050. In this report, the Committee on Climate Change explains why the UK should aim for an 80 per cent reduction by 2050 and how that is attainable, and then recommends the first three budgets that will define the path to 2022. But the path is attainable at manageable cost, and following it is essential if the UK is to play its fair part in avoiding the far higher costs of harmful climate change. Part 1 of the report addresses the 2050 target. The 80 per cent target should apply to the sum of all sectors of the UK economy, including international aviation and shipping. The costs to the UK from this level of emissions reduction can be made affordable - estimated at between 1-2 per cent of GDP in 2050. In part 2, the Committee sets out the first three carbon budgets covering the period 2008-22, and examines the feasible reductions possible in various sectors: decarbonising the power sector; energy use in buildings and industry; reducing domestic transport emissions; reducing emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases; economy wide emissions reductions to meet budgets. The third part of the report examines wider economic and social impacts from budgets including competitiveness, fuel poverty, security of supply, and differences in circumstances between the regions of the UK.

Response to the 4th Progress Report - Meeting Carbon Budgets - http: //hmccc.s3.amazonaws.com/2012 Progress/CCC_Progress Rep 2012_bookmarked_spreads_1.pdf, issued on the 28 June 201

Response to the 5th Progress Report - Meeting Carbon Budgets - http://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/2013-progress-report/

Although there is no denial of climate justice, there has been a persistent lack of practical joined-up actions regarding the creation of an international climate institution. However, politicians and academic researchers have been working together to find solutions. This new book is an attempt to put forward constructive approaches to climate security and justice, building upon the inputs from the wide-ranging debates that took place at the CASS Forum on Climate Justice and the Carbon Budget Approach in Beijing (April 2010). The purpose of this prestigious international conference was to construct an international climate regime and to help promote climate justice. It also called on governments, particularly governments in developed countries, to bear the historical responsibility of climate change. Climate change is a controversial topic worldwide today and the international regime and corresponding actions will inevitably have a lasting and profound influence on the world economy and international politics. At its thirteenth session, held in Bali, Indonesia, at the end of 2007, the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Bali Action Plan, initiating a new process of negotiations on long-term cooperative actions under the Convention with the goal of reaching international agreements on an international climate regime beyond 2012 at the fifteenth session of the Conference to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the end of 2009. The key factors in the present international climate negotiations are a shared vision of global long-term cooperative actions, mitigation, adaptation, technology and finance, and their core issue is how to reach an agreement for equitable burden-sharing of obligations for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions or allocation of emission entitlements in accordance with the concrete conditions of various countries and to ensure the implementation of such an agreement under an appropriate international regime. As the largest developing country in the world, China plays an important role in international climate negotiations and is under increasing international pressure.The existing Kyoto Protocol model takes the level of emissions in 1990 as a base and determines the emission reduction obligations of each developed country through negotiation. The findings gathered together in this book break through the fixed pattern of thinking of the Kyoto Protocol and, based on the theory and methodology of the basic carbon emissions needed for human development, studies a carbon budget proposal for global greenhouse gas emission reductions. This proposal not only better embodies the principle of "e;common but differentiated responsibilities"e; established by the Climate Convention, but will also be able to realize global goals for mid- and long-term emission reductions. It represents a comprehensive proposal for developing a more equitable and more effective international climate regime.The CASS Forum on Climate Justice and the Carbon Budget Approach in Beijing (April 2010) was organised in association with the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Misereor.