§ Malcolm BruceTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the United Kingdom greenhouse gas emissions, expressed in terms of million tonnes of carbon, were in(a)1990 and (b)2001; and if she will make a statement on whether the United Kingdom is on course to meet its emissions reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. [63185]
§ Mr. Meacher[holding answer 20 June 2002]:The UK is still on course to achieve its Kyoto Protocol target of a 12.5 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2008–12.
In 1990, the UK's emissions of the six greenhouse gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol were 204.9 million tonnes of carbon (MtC). The emissions data for 2001 are still being collected and analysed. My Department plans to publish it in April next year. In 2000, the UK's total greenhouse gas emissions were 177.9 MtC, which is about 13.2 per cent below 1990 levels.
A provisional estimate for CO, emissions alone in 2001, based on energy use, was published by the DTI in March in its Energy Trends Publication. That estimate of 154 MtC, which would be a slight increase on the previous year, caused by higher emissions from power 605W stations due to increased coal burn and colder outside temperatures, is about 5 per cent below the level of the UK's CO2 emissions in 1990 of 161.6 MtC.