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The UK government last night passed its Climate Change Bill, with amendments to include aviation and shipping emissions deemed to be from UK sources by the end of 2012. Emissions from these two sectors should be considered for inclusion by 2012, or the government needs to explain to Parliament why such rules have not been created. The bill also commits the UK to an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with 1990 levels by 2050. “It will make us the first country in the world to enshrine in law binding climate change targets that are stretching and ambitious,” said Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary, in introducing the bill’s third reading. Environmentalists praised the move, with David Nussbaum, chief executive of WWF UK, praising the government for creating “an ambitious piece of legislation that sets the UK out as a true leader on environmental issues”. Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth UK, added: “Developing a low-carbon economy here in the UK is the only way to deliver on the law, move Britain out of recession and into a greener more prosperous future.” The British Air Transport Association criticised the plans, with secretary general Roger Wiltshire stating that: “Unilateral national targets, with no agreed method in place for calculating and allocating emissions, are not an appropriate way to tackle the global issue of climate change ... The sensible approach is developing international initiatives, such as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme which airlines are joining in 2012.” A parliamentary climate change committee will be responsible for setting the UK’s ‘carbon budgets’, establishing the caps needed to meet the long-term 2050 goal. Miliband acknowledged the scale of the effort needed to meet the targets, adding that “action from every section of our society” will be required. “Government action is needed to stimulate the development of a broad profile of low-carbon technologies, such as our action to facilitate new nuclear build and support renewable deployment, and the carbon capture and storage demonstration,” said Joan Ruddock, Parliamentary Under Secretary in the newly formed Department of Energy and Climate Change, during the debate.

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