Climate change committee report due

6:15am Monday 1st December 2008

The committee set up to advise ministers on climate change will make recommendations on a series of emissions cuts, amid calls to further toughen UK action on global warming.

The Committee for Climate Change, chaired by Adair Turner, will give its advice on what the UK's target should be for reducing emissions by 2020.

It will also give its recommendations on the first three five-year "carbon budgets" up to 2022, each of which provide caps on the amount of emissions that can be produced across the economy.

The committee's report is expected to advise how and where the cuts can be made.

Lord Turner may also advise the Government on the issue of building new coal-fired power stations - something which environmental groups heavily oppose.

He has already indicated that the targets for emissions cuts could be met while still allowing the expansion of Heathrow airport to go ahead.

The committee was set up under the recently passed Climate Change Act, which lays out legally binding targets for reducing emissions by 2020 and 2050 and requires the Government to set five-year "carbon budgets" for cutting emissions.

The 2020 reduction target is currently a cut of at least 26% in carbon dioxide emissions, although ministers accept that needs to be revised.

Think tank IPPR said it believed the UK needed to improve the 2020 target from 26% below 1990 levels to at least 30%, if it is going to do its fair share in helping the world avoid "dangerous" climate change.

The think tank said the UK could meet the 30% goal by investing in renewable power such as wind, improving energy efficiency in homes and vehicles and constraining aviation.