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Greenhouse gas emissions should be slashed by more than a third by 2020, the committee set up to advise the Government on climate change has concluded. As a bare minimum, greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide, must be reduced by 34 per cent, said Lord Turner of Ecchinswell who chaired the Committee on Climate Change.

But they should be cut even further to at least 42 per cent from levels in 1990 if an international agreement on setting post-Kyoto targets can be reached by the end of next year.

The targets cut much deeper than the Climate Change Act, which received Royal Assent last week and sets Britain a target of a 26 per cent reduction by 2020 but in CO2 emissions alone rather than overall greenhouse gases.

Greenhouse gas budgets for the country and sectors of the economy were announced alongside the targets. They are designed to plot the countrys course to reducing emissions over the next 12 years.

Limits on emissions through budgets and targets are likely to mean, as the country becomes increasingly reliant on more expensive forms of energy, an increase in the price of electricity and will drive an additional 1.7 million people into fuel poverty.

Measures can, however, be taken to alleviate the problems caused to the poorest in society without any need to water down the targets, said Lord Turner.

By 2020 the costs of tackling emissions should be no more than 1 per cent of gross national product and he calculated that the

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Tags: Carbon Emissions