§ Mr. Simon HughesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list, for each of the EC nations, the targets they have adopted for stabilising or reducing(a) carbon dioxide, (b) sulphur dioxide, (c) nitrogen oxide and (d) hydrocarbons/volatile organic compounds; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. MacleanA number of EC countries have declared targets on different bases and at different times for carbon dioxide emissions. All EC member states have now signed 245W the United Nations framework convention on climate change. This will commit all developed country parties to take measures aimed at returning emissions of each greenhouse gas, including carbon dioxide, to their 1990 levels by 2000.
The EC Large Combustion Plant Directive (88/609) requires member states to make specified reductions in their annual emissions of sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen from existing plant. The targets vary country by country, but range from 29 per cent. to 70 per cent. reductions in sulphur dioxide emissions by 2003, and from 0 per cent. to 40 per cent. reductions in nitrogen oxides emissions by 1988—in all cases over 1980 emissions. The targets are listed in annex I to the directive, available in the Library of the House.
All EC member states are parties to the convention on long-range transboundary air pollution within the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Seven of the12—Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands—are all parties to the sulphur protocol to the convention, which requires a reduction of at least 30 per cent. in national annual emissions of sulphur by 1993, from 1980 levels. All member states except Portugal have signed the nitrogen oxides protocol to the convention, which requires national annual emissions to be stabilised at 1987 levels by 1994. All member states except Ireland have also signed the latest protocol to the convention, requiring national emissions of volatile organic compounds, including hydrocarbons, to be reduced by at least 30 per cent. by 1999, in most cases from 1988 levels.
In 1984 the United Kingdom Government adopted the aim of reducing annual sulphur dioxide emissions from all existing sources by 30 per cent. on 1980 levels by the year 2000. We are on target to meet this objective, and more. In 1984 we also set ourselves the ambitious aim of achieving a 30 per cent. reduction from 1980 levels of nitrogen oxides emissions by the end of the 1990s. This has been made even more difficult by the recent growth in road traffic, but it remains an aim for which we strive.