Research funded by EPSRC suggests otherwise.
Britain will fail to meet its 2010 target for cutting carbon dioxide emissions, the Government admitted this week. The target of a 20 per cent cut in 1990 levels of CO2 by the end of this year is likely to be missed by a wide margin.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: “We are not going to meet the 20 per cent target this year. The 2010 target was always designed to be stretching and has helped to drive the progress that has already been made.”
Top of ForBottom of FormShe said that the Government would be focusing on achieving other targets with much longer timescales. It has committed to cutting greenhouse gases by 34 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050.
Yet research completed by SOLUTIONS, a major research programme funded by EPSRC into future urban form and transport, suggests that even these 2020 targets may be unattainable and that history may repeat itself in ten years time.
The £1.5m SOLUTIONS project (Sustainability Of Land Use and Transport In Outer NeighbourhoodS), part of EPSRC’s Sustainable Urban Environments programme, found that far from cutting transport carbon emissions, current government policies will lead almost inevitably to a significant increase…
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Tags: 2010 target, 2020 target, carbon, carbon dioxide emissions, CO2, DECC, Ed Milliband, environment minister, EPSRC, Government UK, minister for energy and climate, SOLUTIONS, SUE, Susatinable Urban Environments, sustainability
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