MPs warn climate policy is becoming 'incoherent'

The Commons Environmental Audit Committee said that the government's target for cutting damaging greenhouse gas emissions had failed to keep up with the latest scientific evidence.

The committee also criticised ministers for failing to include emissions from international aviation and shipping in the targets set out in the draft Climate Change Bill.

The Bill currently includes a legally binding target for the UK to cut carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050.

However, the committee said that the latest scientific research suggested that this was now "very unlikely" to be consistent with the government's overall aim to stabilise the rise in global temperature at 2C.

"The government's policy towards the UK's 2050 target is clearly incoherent," the committee said. "This target should be strengthened to reflect current scientific understanding of the emission cuts required for a strong probability at stabilising warming at 2C."

Committee chairman Tim Yeo said that their report had exposed a number of weaknesses in climate change policy.

"Carbon-saving measures have not delivered as much as predicted, and forecasts of future emissions have consistently drifted upwards," he said.

"To make things worse, these forecasts have not been updated often enough, which means that by the time ministers knew the UK's 2010 target was significantly off-track it was too late to do much about it."

However, the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, said the UK should be proud of its record on tackling climate change.

"We are on track to meet and go beyond our Kyoto target," he said.

"Government must rightly lead in combating climate change and is helping individuals and businesses to play their part, but also working to secure a strong and comprehensive global deal to reduce emissions.

"But we recognise that to reach our long-term goals we need to do more.

"That's why we will put in place ambitious climate change legislation, the first of its kind in the world, which will help us cut emissions at home, and show we're willing to make our contribution as part of a global agreement."

Mr Benn also said the government was pressing for aviation to be included in the EU emissions trading scheme.

"The 60 per cent unilateral commitment is ambitious by any standard and consistent with our leading position internationally," he said.

"However, we recognise that we will need to keep this goal under review in the light of emerging scientific evidence and other developments and there is a clause in the Bill which allows this to happen."

Last week the same Commons committee said that passengers should pay a "green tax" on airfares to combat the damage to the environment caused by increased flying.

Mr Yeo said airlines should be forced to levy a charge of up to 40 for every flight to offset carbon emissions from aircraft.

The committee attacked the airline industry's "generally unsatisfactory attitude" to schemes to pay to offset the output of planes.