The government has pledged to reduce nationwide emissions of carbon dioxide by 30 per cent by 2020. But new peer-reviewed research conducted by scientists at University College London suggests that we will fall short of these targets by between 12 and 17 per cent.
The report concludes that because many of the policies put in place to tackle energy use have been voluntary, they will have insufficient power to force the necessary reductions.
The research will be presented on Channel 4’s ‘Dispatches’ programme this evening, on the same day that David Miliband will address an audience at Cambridge University on the UK’s transition to a ‘post-oil’ economy.
This article first appeared in the Ecologist March 2007
