Tag: Committee on Climate Change

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Carbon Capture and Storage United Kingdom

December 1, 2008 – Climate Change Committee fanboys carbon capture

Fifteen years ago, on this day, December 1, 2008, the first report of the brand-spanking new “Committee on Climate Change” was released. It fanboys CCS.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Committee on Climate Change, which had been formally established by the Climate Change Act, but must have been appointing people, paying people, and generally being underway. This is its first report about reducing carbon emissions. And predictably enough since it’s the middle of the first competition on CCS there is a big fanboy section about carbon capture and storage. 

What I think we can learn from this is that CCS is very “logical” within our system, that there is mitigation deterrence to worry about, and that actual saving of carbon dioxide has not happened yet at any meaningful scale. And whether it will be remains to be seen. My money would be on “No”.

The Committee on Climate Change or the Climate Change Committee, as it wants to be called, has continued to produce really useful work ever since, though some (waves at Kevin Anderson) think it should have done much more holding-feet-to-the-fire…

What happened next

The CCS competition collapsed in 2011. Was replaced with another in 2012. It had the plug pulled in 2015. And here we are again.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..

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United Kingdom

May 2, 2019 – Committee on Climate change report on net zero by 2050

Four years ago, on this day, May 2, 2019,  The UK Committee on Climate Change released its report on the  UK becoming net zero by 2050

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 414.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that once the UK had signed up to the Paris Agreement, which it had ratified in late 2016, it was pretty clear that the existing target of an 80% reduction by 2050 on a 1990 baseline was not going to be adequate as the UK contribution to keeping temperatures below two degrees above pre-industrial levels. Therefore, the target would need revisiting. The logical outfit to do that revisiting was, of course, the Committee on Climate Change. It did the work and released it in 2019, by which time a bunch of MPs – including Conservatives who had campaigned for Brexit – were pushing for a 2050 net zero target. 

What I think we can learn from this

Big, “round number” promises can have serious institutional consequences if there’s enough momentum underneath them. So, the 1988 Toronto target was a big round number target, but it didn’t have institutional momentum behind it. There wasn’t enough intellectual and political heft, whereas the Paris Target of 2015 was different, and has been more consequential politically. Not I hasten to add, in terms of real life reduction in emissions, but you can’t have everything 

What happened next

And so it came to pass in the final days of the Theresa May administration, the 2008 Climate Change Act was amended to raise the target. This has had serious implications for the attention paid to sectors of the economy, especially industry, which had previously thought they could be in that 20% that could be emitting in the year 2050.

Lots of reports and activity about “Net Zero by 2050”. We shall see…

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.