Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said the government would strike an independent committee on climate change to advise on “five-year carbon budgets” and introduce carbon trading schemes for large to medium size companies and public sector organizations.
Legislation will also ask the committee whether the government’s target to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 60% by 2050 should be strengthened further, and whether other greenhouse gases, and emissions from international aviation and shipping, should be included in the UK‘s targets.
Unimpressed, Green Party spokesperson Caroline Lucas described the 60% reduction target as “woefully inadequate and too distant.
“We need a Climate Change Bill which sets binding emissions reduction targets of at least 6% a year to allow us to achieve cuts in UK greenhouse gas emissions in the region of 90% by 2030.”
