Policy paper

Response to the European Commission’s consultation on the EU’s 2030 climate and energy framework

This response presents the UK’s analysis of the lessons learnt from the EU’s 2020 framework, and its vision for 2030 supported by a reformed EU emissions trading scheme

• From: Department of Energy & Climate Change
• Published: 5 July 2013

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Documents

DECC response to the European Commission’s consultation

Ref: 13D/171

PDF, 407 KB, 32 pages

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Details

The European Commission’s Green Paper on a 2030 framework for climate and energy policies, published on 27 March, launched a consultation on a series of questions about the future of EU climate and energy policies, including the priorities for an EU-wide framework and the need for supporting targets for 2030.

The UK believes the EU should adopt an ambitious emissions reduction target for 2030, delivered in a flexible, technology neutral way, supported by a robust, reformed emissions trading system, and underpinned by a global agreement in 2015. The framework should be designed to achieve the most cost-effective emissions reductions. We believe this means that the EU should:

• adopt a unilateral EU wide greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of 40% for 2030;
• make an offer to move to a target of up to 50% in the context of a global comprehensive agreement on climate change;
• urgently deliver structural reform of the EU ETS, on the basis of legislative proposals from the European Commission, put forward well before the end of this year;
• continue to work towards completion of the single energy market in line with recent European Council Conclusions;
• not include a renewable energy target or mandatory energy efficiency target, either of which risk pre-judging the cost effective pathway to 2030 GHG outcomes; and
• continue with key enabling actions including support for R&D and product standards.

The consultation is available on the EC website.

Published 5 July 2013