Mr. Gareth R. ThomasTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will publish(a) the pro[...]ections of the cost per tonne of carbon saved and (b) the absolute carbon saving projections for (i) renewable energy, (ii) domestic energy efficiency and (iii) combined heat and power as originally outlined on pages 17 and 46 of the 1998 DETR document, the UK Climate Change Programme: Consultation paper. [160799]
§ Mr. MeacherThe Government have not updated the general costs per tonne of carbon saved that were included in the 1998 climate change consultation paper. We produced a qualitative assessment of the costs and benefits in the UK's climate change programme that was published in November 2000. The Government will consider whether it is possible to re-assess the costs per tonne of carbon saved from each policy in the future, as part of the formal evaluation of the climate change programme in 2004–05. The results of this evaluation will be published.
265WThe climate change programme included estimated carbon savings for all those policies for which savings could be quantified. We estimate that delivery of the Government's target to provide 10 per cent. of the UK's electricity from renewable energy, as against around 5 per cent. that might otherwise have teen achieved, could bring savings of 2.5 MtC in 2010. Extensive discussions about the potential costs and benefits of domestic energy efficiency confirmed that a range of simple measures could save up to 2.7–3.8 MtC per year by 2010. The UK's current CHP capacity of around 4,700 MWe is estimated to save around 4 MtC per year. The carbon savings from increased use of CHP are reflected within those for a range of other policies within the programme, particularly the climate change levy, climate change agreements and community heating.