UK ponders deep greenhouse cuts

Developing countries want better living standards

By environment correspondent Alex Kirby

The UK Government is examining the consequences of slashing greenhouse gas emissions by more than half.

The Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, told a Parliamentary committee he had instructed his officials to look at the implications of the move.

He said he had asked them to evaluate the changes that might be needed with a 60% cut in emissions. This is a far greater reduction than any other country is yet contemplating.

Mr Meacher was giving evidence to the House of Commons science and technology committee, which is enquiring into how the government obtains and uses scientific advice on climate change.

Not far enough

He was speaking just days after the collapse of attempts to reconvene the stalled talks on finalising the Kyoto Protocol, the international climate treaty.

A conference designed to allow the early entry into force of the protocol broke down last month in The Hague. Mr Meacher said scientists and politicians at the conference had agreed that the Kyoto target did not go nearly far enough.

Michael Meacher: "Mind-blowing"

That requires industrialised countries to cut their emissions of the six main greenhouse gases to 5.2% below their 1990 levels within 10 years.

He told the committee the world shared a single atmosphere. "If the developing countries are going to achieve better living standards, which they want to do and imitate ours, we are going to have to accept further reductions", Mr Meacher said.

"I have seen figures of a 90% reduction. These are mind-blowing figures in terms of realpolitik today. On the changes his officials say a 60% emissions cut might require, Mr Meacher said: "I suspect they will be severely worrisome and the department will be extremely unwilling to publish them. We shall see."

Ministers said in a report published last month, Climate Change: The UK Programme, that they wanted "to instigate a national debate on how the UK might make the transformation to a low-carbon economy".

No target

They recognised the "important role" of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, which last June urged the government to adopt a strategy leading to a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050.

But they said they did "not intend to set a target at this stage for reductions beyond 2010".

Deep cuts could mean "worrisome" changes

Mr Meacher told the committee he had not been surprised by the breakdown of the Hague talks, or the difficulties in the way of an agreement.

"They are the sort of problems you would expect when everybody finally has to face the truth and confront the dramatic changes in behaviour that will be required across society and government," he said.

"No country in the world can escape", Mr Meacher said.

Mark Johnston, of Friends of the Earth, told BBC News Online: "The highly developed western countries, including of course the UK, which have the highest emissions must cut them much more deeply than developing countries.

"While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is calling for an overall emissions cut of 60%, if we are to be fair to every person and every country in the world, then cuts around 90% are what the UK and similar countries must deliver."