Guardian: “Five months after the launch of the government’s flagship energy efficiency programme, energy uppliers are still struggling with the IT systems and legal arrangements they need to offer households insulation and other improvements under the “green deal“. Of the so-called “Big Six”, only British Gas has fully launched a national green deal programme.Guardian: “The UK is on track to miss its carbon targets in the 2020s, the government’s advisers on climate change warned on Wednesday. Efforts to cut emissions are not happening quickly enough, and a looming “policy gap” will lead to a shortfall in the investment and infrastructure needed for a low-carbon economy, they said. Last year, UK greenhouse gas emissions rose by 3.5%, in a setback to the government’s plans for stringent “carbon budgets” that stipulate steep falls in emissions from now to 2027. The rise was owing to the cold winter and more power coming from coal, which is currently cheap. / The committee on climate change, in its annual progress report, said this was a temporary increase and the UK was likely to meet its carbon reduction goals for 2017. But it warned that without strong measures the UK would miss its carbon reduction targets from 2017 to 2027. When the effects of last year’s rise are stripped out, the underlying emissions trend is for a 1% to 1.5% decrease in emissions each year – less than half the 3% annual reductions needed to meet longer-term climate goals.”
Future Today
