13 October 2016 | Herpreet Kaur Grewal

Current policy in the UK is not enough to deliver the carbon budgets that Parliament has set and requires specific measures in buildings to tackle this, warns the body advising the UK Government on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The Committee on Climate Change, a quango established under the Climate Change Act, highlights that “current policies would at best deliver around half of the emissions reductions required to 2030”. 

It calls for a number of robust actions from government across policy areas. In buildings specifically, it calls for the use of standards, incentives and training to drive the necessary emissions reductions.

Julie Hirigoyen, chief executive of the UK Green Building Council, said: “At a time when the government is dragging its heels in ratifying the Paris Agreement, these reports from the Committee on Climate Change present a bleak picture of where we are with our current emissions reduction policies. They highlight an urgent need for us to do more to plug our current policy gap. We strongly echo the committee’s call for a long-term framework to reduce the emissions from buildings.”

The Committee on Climate Change has published three documents detailing ‘UK climate action following the Paris Agreement’, ‘Implications of Brexit for UK Climate Policy’, and ‘Next steps for UK heat policy’.