United Kingdom

Critically Insufficient4°C+ World

NDCs with this rating fall well outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would exceed 4°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming of greater than 4°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

Highly insufficient< 4°C World

NDCs with this rating fall outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach between 3°C and 4°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming between 3°C and 4°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

Insufficient< 3°C World

NDCs with this rating are in the least stringent part of a country’s “fair share” range and not consistent with holding warming below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach over 2°C and up to 3°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming over 2°C and up to 3°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

2°C Compatible< 2°C World

NDCs with this rating are consistent with the 2009 Copenhagen 2°C goal and therefore fall within a country’s “fair share” range, but are not fully consistent with the Paris Agreement long term temperature goal. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming could be held below, but not well below, 2°C and still be too high to be consistent with the Paris Agreement 1.5°C limit. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with holding warming below, but not well below, 2°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

1.5°C Paris Agreement Compatible< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDCs in the most stringent part of its “fair share” range: it is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit.

Role model<< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDC is more ambitious than what is considered a “fair” contribution: it is more than consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. No “role model” rating has been developed for the sectors.

1.5°C Compatible< 1.5°C World

Global Warming Potentials

The CAT uses Global Warming Potential (GWP) values from the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) for all figures and time series.

Historical emissions

Historical emissions data were obtained from the ‘Final UK greenhouse gas emissions national statistics: 1990-2017’ (UK Government, 2019l). Provisional emission data for 2018 was also included (UK Government, 2019m). The UK provides inventory data to the UNFCCC that includes emissions from Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, which are not covered by UK climate policy and are not included in government emission projections. For this reason, we have chosen to use national emission statistics rather than UNFCCC inventory emissions.

Pledges and targets

For the 2020 target, we took the average emission level across the five years of the UK’s third carbon budget and subtracted the projected level of removals from LULUCF in that year (UK Government, 2019a). LULUCF is projected to provide an accounting contribution of -16 MtCO₂e in 2020. For comparability between countries, the CAT presents all targets excluding LULUCF.

For the 2030 target, we took the average emission level across the five years of the UK’s fifth carbon budget and subtracted the projected level of removals from LULUCF in that year (UK Government, 2019a). LULUCF is projected to provide an accounting contribution of -11 MtCO₂e in 2030.

For the 2050 net-zero target, we took the upper and lower projections of the CCC’s LULUCF emissions in 2050 (Core Scenario and Further Ambition minus Energy crops, agroforestry & hedges) and added this to the zero emission baseline (Committee on Climate Change, 2019e).

Current policy projections

The current policy projections from 2018 to 2030 were obtained from greenhouse gas emission projections updated annually by the UK Government which were then harmonised to the latest historical and provisional (2018) data (UK Government, 2019a). The UK’s annual emission projection report presents projections considering future impacts of policy measures enacted as of July 2018 (For details of the policies included, see Annex D of the BEIS Updated Energy and Emissions Projections 2018 report) (UK Government, 2019k). The CAT assesses the policies contained in the ‘Existing Policies’ scenario.

Planned policy projections

The planned policies projection shown in the CAT is taken from the UK government’s ‘Reference Scenario’ which includes all the policies contained within the aforementioned ‘Existing Policies’ scenario, as well as policies where “decisions on policy design are sufficiently advanced to allow robust estimates of impact (i.e. including "planned" policies).” It is then harmonised with historical and provisional emissions as above (For details of the policies included, see Annex D of the BEIS Updated Energy and Emissions Projections 2018 report).