Tuesday 6 February 2018 14:30
The majority of Britain’s now come from transport, according to new government figures.
Emissions fell by 5 per cent overall between 2015 and 2016, largely due to a decrease in the use of coal for electricity generation.
The figures suggest the UK is on track to meet the second carbon budget, which restricts the amount of greenhouse gas the UK can legally emit in a five-year period that ends in 2017.
However, critics have accused the transport sector of “failing to play its part” in curbing emissions after they rose by 2 per cent, according to 2016 figures from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) – the most recent year for which they are available.
Transport now accounts for 26 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 25 per cent coming from energy supplies.
The main sources were petrol and diesel cars.
Since 1990, greenhouse gas emissions have fallen 41 per cent in the UK, while carbon dioxide – the main greenhouse gas – is down 36 per cent.
While emissions from energy supplies are down 57 per cent from that point, transport emissions are only down 2 per cent over the same period, making it the worst performing sector.
Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Simon Bullock said: “Despite this welcome fall in climate-wrecking pollution, the transport sector is still failing to play its part in slashing emissions. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling must play catch-up fast – his department can’t continue to crawl along in the slow lane when it comes to tackling climate change.”
Green MEP Keith Taylor, a member of the European Parliament’s Transport and Environment Committees, has written to Mr Grayling to express frustration over what he called “wrong-headed” priorities, which include cutting bus services, de-prioritising walking and cycling infrastructure and scrapping plans for rail electrification.
“Britain cannot afford to continue looking backwards when it comes to transport; for too long we have been driven by an agenda that has no regard for the urgent air pollution crisis nor the climate breakdown,” he said.
He added: “It is alarming that the Government is tearing up our communities and our precious environment for road building projects that will fail on their own terms, by actually increasing congestion and the number of cars on our roads, and continue driving climate-destructive emissions – at a huge cost to taxpayers.”