Kyoto Protocol (Hansard, 11 April 2002)

§ Lord Whitty

The UK's climate change programme provides full details of how the Government intend to meet their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. In developing the programme, the Government sought to minimise the level of regulation and put together a flexible, cost-effective package of policies to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Each policy was also subject to normal government procedures for producing regulatory impact assessments and one was published for the programme as a whole.

The final mix of policies in the programme covers all sectors of the economy and includes:

regulations, for example, the Renewables Obligation and amendments to the building regulations, where it was felt after consultation that these would be the most effective way of achieving the desired results within specific areas;

economic instruments, for example, the climate change levy and changes to vehicle excise duty and company car tax. These are designed to stimulate better energy efficiency and to encourage the purchase and use of low carbon technologies;

flexible, innovative measures, like the UK's emissions trading scheme, which will allow companies to make cost-effective emissions reductions;

voluntary-based agreements like the climate change agreements and EU-level agreements with car manufacturers to reduce CO₂ emissions from new cars;

grant based schemes, like the New Home Energy Efficiency Scheme, and those administered by the Carbon Trust and the Energy Savings Trust; and

measures to raise consumers' awareness of the issues including the use of energy labels on domestic appliances and the provision of information and advice.