Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the UK’s carbon footprint is not exported to countries with weaker targets in place.

The Government publishes annual estimates of the UK’s carbon footprint on a consumption basis. The latest statistics were published on 11 April and show the footprint for years 1997 to 2016: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint. Carbon footprint measured in this way refers to emissions that are associated with the consumption spending of UK residents on goods and services, wherever in the world these emissions arise along the supply chain, and those which are directly generated by UK households through private motoring etc. These emissions are often referred to as ‘consumption emissions’ to distinguish them from estimates relating to the emissions ‘produced’ within a country’s territory or economic sphere.

As stated in the Resources and Waste Strategy, the Government’s goal is to maximise the value of the resources we use, minimise the waste we create, cut emissions and help create a cleaner, greener, healthier planet. In the Strategy we have committed to measures that will improve resource efficiency, prevent waste and cut carbon consumption emissions.

Climate change is a global challenge. The UK is a world leader in cutting emissions while creating wealth. Between 1990 and 2017, the UK reduced its emissions by over 40 per cent while growing the economy by more than two thirds. We have met our first two Carbon Budgets and are on track to meet the third. In addition, our consumption emissions are falling. Greenhouse gas emissions on a consumption basis fell by 6% between 2015 and 2016; and by 21% between 2007 and 2016.

UK International Climate Finance (ICF) plays a crucial role in addressing this global challenge. Three government Departments (DFID, BEIS and Defra) have responsibility for investing the UK’s £5.8bn of ICF between 2016 and 2021. These investments aim to support international poverty eradication now and in the future, by helping developing countries to manage risk, adapt to and build resilience to the impacts of climate change; promoting low carbon development at scale; and supporting sustainable management of natural resources and reducing deforestation. Between 2011/12 and 2017/18, it is estimated that ICF programmes have reduced or avoided 10.4 million tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (tCO2e).

Energy and trade intensive businesses create particular challenges, where ambitious climate change targets could risk carbon leakage. As the Clean Growth Strategy sets out, we remain committed to carbon pricing as an emissions reduction tool whilst ensuring energy and trade intensive businesses are appropriately protected from any detrimental impacts on competitiveness.

During Phase IV negotiations on the EU Emissions Trading System the UK supported the provision of free allocation as a precaution against the risk of carbon leakage; as the UK leaves the EU our preferred position is to have a UK ETS that is linked to the EU ETS and in that scenario, as set-out in our recent consultation on the future of carbon pricing, we propose to continue the provision of free allocation to industry to help ensure a smooth transition and continued protection against carbon leakage.