Download or read book The road to UNFCCC COP 18 and beyond written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-07-25 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Europe should set a target to reduce CO2 emissions by 30% on 1990 levels by 2020 in order to demonstrate political leadership in the run up to UN climate talks in 2015, when political consensus could be reached on a new international agreement to replace the Kyoto protocol. The Kyoto Protocol created an invaluable architecture for future agreements - including common emissions reporting, accounting standards and a compliance system - but it should not be renewed after 2020. Instead, diplomatic efforts should now be focused on reaching a new, and genuinely international, agreement via the promising Platform negotiated last year in Doha. Europe's influence over future international negotiations would be greatly increased if its own economy was decarbonised more. The Human Development Index should be used in future to determine equitably which countries are treated as 'developed' - and required to decrease their emissions immediately. Given the severe fiscal constraints in most developed countries, it is unlikely that the US $100 billion Green Climate Fund target will be reached by 2020 unless an innovative mechanism is developed to budgetary contributions. The UK should exploit its expertise in financial services to develop innovative mechanisms for levering in more private investment. The Government should support moves to eliminate the $400 billion of fossil fuel subsidies across the world, while ensuring that this is done in a way that does not worsen fuel poverty. The Government should also show leadership by acknowledging that consumption in the UK and some other developed countries is driving up territorial emissions elsewhere

Download or read book The Road to UNFCCC COP 18 and Beyond written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by . This book was released on 2012-10-24 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: UNFCCC = United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; COP18 = 18th Conference of the Parties. Government response to HC 88, session 2012-13 (ISBN 9780215047342)

Download or read book HC 348 The Green Deal Watching Brief Part 2 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Green Deal was launched in January 2013 to help Britain's households and businesses make energy efficiency improvements. The Government has called it "a long-term and progressive programme. In December 2012, the Committee launched Green Deal: watching brief inquiry, to follow the Green Deal from its inception and monitor its debut on the UK market. In May 2013, the Committee published the Green Deal: watching brief report in which were outlined concerns about the lack of clarity regarding the outcomes that Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) expected from the Green Deal. Green Deal: watching brief (part 2) reviews the performance of the Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation (ECO) in the seven key areas outlined in the previous report, assess DECC's approach to evaluating and monitoring the performance of the Green Deal and ECO, and considers DECC's recent proposals to improve the Green Deal and reduce the cost of ECO. The report found that the Green Deal, rather than facilitating access to energy efficiency measures and creating momentum in the market, has caused frustration and confusion for both consumers and businesses in the supply chain. Only 4,000 Green Deal plans have so far been initiated. As a result, carbon savings through Green Deal finance have been negligible. Therefore the Government must re-evaluate its approach and set out a clear strategy to revive the failing scheme, as unless the package is made more attractive to a wider group of consumers, Green Deal finance is likely to remain unappealing to many.

Download or read book HC 742 Carbon Capture and Storage written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-05-21 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Energy and Climate Change Committee urge the Government to fast-track final funding decisions on two pilot Carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects at Peterhead and Drax by early 2015, after years of delay in the 'competition' launched to provide capital support for the industry. This delay has called into question the credibility of Government policy designed to support CCS deployment in the UK. The technology - which can be fitted to coal and gas power stations - is vital to limit climate change because there is more CO2 locked up in fossil fuel reserves than can be safely burnt without pushing global temperatures beyond 2 degrees Celsius - a dangerous threshold according to scientists. The higher costs associated with fitting and running CCS means that it is likely to develop only in response to specific policy intervention and will need subsidy. The Government should be transparent about the costs of CCS and how they will be met. Guaranteed price tariffs for low carbon energy - called 'Contracts for Difference' (CfD) - will be essential to incentivise CCS projects and provide a route to market for non-competition projects. Deploying CCS in the UK early could also deliver significant economic benefits. It could increase UK plc's future share of the global CCS market and open up a potential 'storage market' using the UK's offshore geological storage capacity - thought to amount to 70 billion tonnes of CO2 or over a century of UK emissions - while protecting jobs associated with the UK's coal and energy intensive industries.

Download or read book House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee Local Energy HC 180 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-08-06 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Government provides support to households who install small-scale renewable energy systems through Feed-in Tariffs (FiT), while large scale projects like off-shore wind farms will soon be supported through new fixed-price Contracts for Difference (CfDs). Medium sized energy projects of between 10 - 50 Megawatts (MW) currently fall in the gap and do not receive support. Giving communities a stake in local energy projects has the potential to broaden public understanding of energy issues and could also enhance the security and efficiency of the energy system as a whole. This report identifies a number of barriers that can prevent local energy projects getting off the ground. Securing funding and Power Purchase Agreements, connecting to the grid and overcoming public opposition can all prove difficult. Obtaining planning permission can be costly and time-consuming, and the risk of losing tens of thousands of pounds if permission is not granted is a huge obstacle for community groups or small cooperatives. Some form of support mechanism is needed alongside a comprehensive package of measures addressing finance, planning, grid access and advice. The Green Investment Bank could provide seed funding and project development funding for feasibility studies, grid permits, etc to reduce some of the risk in getting projects through the planning process. Government needs to do more to encourage local authorities to identify suitable areas for renewable energy development and to develop clear guidance about what is expected from local energy projects. National level planning guidance should be provided on technical issues that hold up planning consent for wind turbines and other low-carbon technologies

Download or read book House of Commons Environmental Audit Office Progress on Carbon Budgets HC 60 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Download or read book House of Commons Sessional Returns HC 1 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On cover and title page: House, committees of the whole House, general committees and select committees. On title page: Returns to orders of the House of Commons dated 14 May 2013 (the Chairman of Ways and Means)

Download or read book Bridging The Pacific written by C. Fred Bergsten and published by Peterson Institute for International Economics. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The terrain of the world trading system is shifting as countries in Asia, Europe, and North America negotiate new trade agreements. However, none of these talks include both China and the United States, the two biggest economies in the world. In this pathbreaking study, C. Fred Bergsten, Gary Clyde Hufbauer, and Sean Miner argue that China and the United States would benefit substantially from a bilateral free trade and investment accord. In the process, they contend, each country would also achieve progress in addressing its internal economic challenges, such as the low saving rate in the United States. Achieving greater trade and investment integration could be accomplished with one comprehensive effort or through step-by-step negotiations over key issues. The authors call on the United States to seek liberalization of China's services sector as vital to securing an agreement, and they explain that such contentious matters as cyber espionage and currency manipulation be handled through parallel negotiations rather than in the agreement itself. This is an important study of the benefits and difficulties of a complex matter that could yield dividends to the two economies and help stabilize the security and well-being of the rest of the world.

Download or read book Building New Nuclear written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-03-04 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Failure to build a new fleet of nuclear power stations in the UK could make it much more expensive to meet our climate change targets and Ministers must urgently develop a back-up energy strategy. The nuclear industry has outlined plans that would deliver 16GW new nuclear power stations by 2025. Although the Government and industry have learnt some important lessons from this process, there are still a number of obstacles which could delay new build projects in the UK. The Committee supports the Government's use of "Contracts for Difference" (CfDs) to help make new nuclear power stations easier to finance, but are concerned at the lack of transparency around the price negotiations. The new contracts must provide value for money for consumers and should not be offered at a price that is higher than other low-carbon sources of energy, such as offshore wind, which is hoped to be around £100/MWh by 2020. Public attitudes have an important role to play in projects to build new nuclear power stations. The Committee is concerned that local communities might not be able to take part in planning consultations on an equal footing with the project developers. The report recommends that the Government should consider providing more support to local community groups so that they can engage better with the planning process. The Government has plans to allow local authorities hosting renewable energy projects to retain business rates. The report argues that this scheme should be extended to new nuclear projects too.

Download or read book Pre appointment Hearing with the Government s Preferred Candidate for Chair of the Committee on Climate Change written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-09-11 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Committee held a pre-appointment hearing with the Government's preferred candidate for the post of chair of the Committee on Climate Change, Lord Deben (the former MP and Government minister, John Gummer). It concludes that he is a suitable candidate and recommends that he be appointed to the position

Download or read book HC 665 Smart Meters Progress or Delay written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smart meters, which allow energy suppliers to get remote electricity and gas readings from households and businesses using mobile phone-type signals and wireless technologies, should benefit customers through savings from energy usage and efficiency. In 2013 we first looked at the Government's programme to roll-out smart meters to 100% of UK homes and businesses by 2020. This inquiry reviewed the progress of the roll-out and we have been disappointed by the ongoing policy delivery challenges which the Government has failed to resolve: (i) Technical communication problems with multiple occupancy and tall buildings which should have been resolved by now; (ii) Compatibility problems between different suppliers and different meters; (iii) A slow start to full engagement with the public on meter installation and long-term use; (iv) A delay by the Government-appointed communications infrastructure company which has further set back confidence in the programme; (iv) A reluctance to improve transparency by publishing the Major Project Authority's assessments on the smart meter programme.

Download or read book HC 347 Small Nuclear Power written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Small Modular Reactors are designed in a way that allows them to be manufactured at a plant and brought to site fully constructed. They have a range of useful applications, including industrial process heat, desalination or water purification, and other cogeneration applications. They could potentially have a key role to play in delivering low carbon energy at lower upfront capital cost compared to large conventional nuclear reactors but the commercial viability of SMRs remains unclear. Deployment of SMRs is likely to be achieved through sharing the costs between the public and private sector. The Committee would like to see the Government steering industry towards deploying a demonstrator SMR in the UK. Government should help to establish the right conditions for investment in SMRs, for example through supporting the regulator to bring forward approvals in the UK, and by setting out a clear view of siting options. Many of the barriers to deployment of SMRs in the UK are similar to the challenges of deploying larger conventional reactors. Small nuclear reactors will also generally raise similar questions of safety and security to those raised by large nuclear reactors. The Office for Nuclear Regulation also needs to be adequately resourced. In the longer term, Government should identify and help to establish future sources of commercial finance for the further development and industrialisation of SMRs. While current SMR designs have been predominantly developed outside the UK, there is scope for British industry to develop intellectual property and play a role in the deployment of the first SMRs

Download or read book Low carbon Growth Links with China written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-08-29 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China is the fastest growing economy in the world and by 2030 could account for half of the world's CO2 emissions. It has recently set out ambitious plans to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy, boost green energy, draft a new climate law and introduce carbon trading. MPs say that this is the ideal time for the UK to work together with China; both to prepare the ground for a future international agreement and to secure potential opportunities for British businesses in China's burgeoning markets for low-carbon technologies (currently worth around £430 billion). The report warns, however, that the Government's work in China suffers from a lack of strategic direction. There are too many small projects, focused on too many different areas, rather than a coordinated effort to achieve key objectives tailored to appeal to Chinese priorities and which build on UK strengths. For policy, this means a focus on carbon pricing and accounting, where the UK has experience to offer. In the business area this mean identifying the potential markets and technologies in which the UK could have a comparative advantage. One area in which the UK could establish a comparative advantage with the right Government support is carbon, capture and storage (CCS) technology which could be a substantial export earner if the UK is able to develop CCS expertise early. The UK's ability to influence policy in China and to compete for business in low-carbon development depends on the reputation of the UK as a credible leader

Download or read book HC 386 Energy Network Costs Transparent and Fair written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Network costs (which cover the transmission and distribution of gas and electricity from power stations to households and industry) are a very significant component of household and industrial energy bills. Ofgem has created a new regulatory framework (RIIO) that was designed to ensure that costs were competitive and that profits weren't excessive, but there is clear evidence that network companies are making higher profits than expected. This suggests that the targets and incentives set by Ofgem are too low, barriers to market entry are high and that Ofgem needs to monitor RIIO more effectively and to equip RIIO with stronger, corrective measures. Ofgem has not yet created the conditions for the market to thrive and provide consumers with best value for money. In the short-term, market conditions can be improved if: (i) an interim independent audit of price controls is conducted; (ii) the 40-day notification period for price changes is increased to 15 months; and (iii) stronger, corrective measures are applied to companies that have received incentive payments for reducing leakages when such reductions have not taken place.

Download or read book Consumer Engagement with Energy Markets written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-12-20 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consumer engagement with the energy market is low. The lack of engagement is linked to low levels of competition and a high proportion of customers who are unlikely or unwilling to switch energy supplier. With little incentive for suppliers to offer consumers a better deal, some customers are getting worse deals than others, which reduces consumer trust. Ofgem hopes to increase both engagement and competition by simplifying tariffs and making it easier to switch. The Government has pledged to require providers to give customers the cheapest tariff. The Committee suggests that indicators should be established to measure the success of these proposed reforms. Also, greater transparency is needed in respect of energy company profits and prices, to restore consumer confidence and streamlining the various sources of information on energy issues would also promote consumer trust. The Government's plans lack detail on how consumer access to information about energy efficiency will be increased. By highlighting these issues, the Committee hopes to kickstart a national conversation about the cost to consumers of investing in the provision of secure, clean and affordable energy supplies for the future. For oral and written evidence, see Volume 2 (ISBN 9780215052186)

Download or read book HC 739 Linking Emissions Trading Systems written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carbon pricing is a necessary element in spurring climate change mitigation action. In this report it's argued that emissions trading, as an established and well recognised policy instrument for controlling greenhouse gas emissions, is increasingly popular and spreading around the world. As they develop, emissions trading systems should be designed so that they are compatible with each other. Aligning design elements early on will help improve the prospects of linking different systems in future and, therefore, maximise opportunities for cost-effective emissions reductions. As the world's oldest and largest market, the EU Emission Trading System will play a critical role in facilitating linking between different markets. Before it can do this, however, it must be seen as a credible market. The issue of surplus allowances must be addressed urgently and there should be moves to remove these from the system as soon as possible. Any new climate agreement must crucially allow parties to meet their Intended Nationally Determined Contribution's (INDCs) by transferring parts of their contributions to other parties and financing emissions reduction activities in other countries. The use of carbon markets will greatly improve the prospects of keeping global average temperatures below 2êC. Any agreement reached at the UNFCCC COP 21 in Paris at the end of 2015 should promote the use of carbon markets and facilitate the future linking of emissions trading systems. The UNFCCC could also play a critical role in providing basic standards including monitoring, reporting and verification.

Download or read book HC 830 Fuelling the Debate Committee Successes and Future Challenges written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Energy and Climate Change Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Climate Change Act 2008 committed the UK to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050. The 2010-2015 Parliament has been a defining period for energy and climate change policy. Three Energy Acts set the policy framework to help the UK achieve its goal. Each Act was designed to support new forms of energy generation, promote energy efficiency and protect consumers. These ambitious pieces of legislation have set the benchmark against which the progress towards providing a secure, clean and affordable energy supply will be judged. The Energy and Climate Change Committee plays a central role in scrutinising and improving the Government's policy and legislation. In section two of this report, the Committee provides a quantitative overview of the work it has undertaken in this Parliament. In section three, the Committee looks in more detail at three case studies - electricity market reform, competition in the energy market and shale gas - each of which highlights the key role the Committee has played in holding the Government to account and improving policy and legislation. Finally, in section four the Committee sets out our future vision for the UK energy system, based on the views and evidence provided by the wide range of stakeholders that it works with. The Committee also explores the challenges which will need to be overcome in the next Parliament if the UK is to achieve its ambitious long-term climate and energy goals.