An FCRN summary is available here.

Supplementary documents released after the publication of the report can be found here.

On 17 January 2008, the Carbon Trust Winter Lecture was delivered in London by Dr Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Dr Pachauri gave his views on a wide range of climate change issues, including the recent Bali conference and the leadership that he sees the UK and its businesses offering to climate change mitigation around the world. You can listen to the lecture here.

According to the European Environment Agency, EU GHGs fell slightly between 2005 and 2006. Overall emissions within the EU-27 fell by 14 million tonnes (0.3 %) and now stand 7.7 % below 1990 levels. Total emissions in the European Union were slightly more than 5.1 billion tonnes in 2006.

The main contributor to the decrease was lower consumption of gas and oil in households and services, which accounted for emission cuts of 16.6 million tonnes, particularly in Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. This was a result of reduced heating needs in Europe due to a warmer year in 2006, together with higher gas prices. Electricity demand remained largely stable in households.Emissions from road transport continued to grow, releasing 6.5 million tonnes of CO2 or 0.7 % more than in 2005. The rise was mostly driven by increased use of diesel for freight and passenger transport. Emissions of greenhouse gases from international aviation and shipping activities continued to rise sharply in 2006. Contributions from these sectors, currently not included under the Kyoto Protocol, rose by nearly 5 million tonnes (aviation) and 10 million tonnes (international shipping).

Agriculture contributed 9% to overall emissions, both for the EU-15 and for the EU-27.

You can download the report here.

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency has produced a new report showing that global CO2 emissions have increased by 3.1% in the last year. China’s emissions grew by 8% and accounted for two thirds of the overall increase. China now tops the with an 8% national increase, China’s CO2 emissions accounted for two thirds of last year’s global carbon dioxide increase of 3.1%. China’s CO2 emissions are now estimated to be about 14% higher than those from the USA. With this, China tops the list of CO2 emitting countries, having about a quarter share in global CO2 emissions (24%), followed by the USA (21%), the EU-15 (12%), India (8%) and the Russian Federation (6%). Together, they comprise 71% of the total of global CO2 emissions. The figures are based on a preliminary estimate, using recently published BP (British Petroleum) energy data and cement production data for 2007.

You can download the report and press release here.

Overall emissions of CO2 from businesses in the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) increased by 0.68% in 2007 when adjusted for changes in the number of installations covered, according to the information provided by Member State registries. While well below the 2.8% growth in the EU's Gross Domestic Product recorded last year, the slight increase in emissions underlines the need for the tighter emission caps that have been set for the 2008–2012 trading period. For more information see here.

Britain's climate change emissions may be 12% higher than officially stated, according to a new National Audit Office report which criticises the government for using two different carbon accounting systems. There is "insufficient consistency and coordination" in the government's approach, the NAO said.

Using one system, which the government presents to the UN and in public (its official Greenhouse Gas Inventory), Britain emitted 656m tonnes of CO2 in 2005, and claims an improvement on 1990 figures. However, the lesser-known but more accurate data in the government's national environmental accounts show emissions to be in the region of 733m tonnes in 2005, a NAO report says today.

You can read the National Audit Office report here or see the Guardian’s coverage of it here.

Figures released by Defra on 31 January 2008 show that the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions “stayed virtually the same” in 2006, dropping by just 0.1% to 554.5 million tonnes CO2. Overall greenhouse gases fell by 0.5% on the year before.

Emissions from the domestic sector fell by 5% while those from business dropped 1.5%. But CO2 emission from the energy supply sector rose 1.5% and from transport by 1.3%. Between 1990 and 2006, emissions from aviation have more than doubled. While emissions from domestic flights fell by 2.8%, this was cancelled out by a 1.5% rise in emissions from international aviation, due to more flights, but these are excluded from the figures.

Friends of the Earth said the figures would be 6% higher if emissions from international flights were included, which it estimates at 35 million tonnes in 2006. It urged the government to include these emissions in the Climate Change Bill (passing through the House of Lords in early 2008).

For more information see the Defra news release here, or its statistics page.

Cool Farming:Climate impacts of agriculture and mitigation potential

This report, published by Greenpeace International was written by researchers from the University of Aberdeen. It puts agriculture’s global contribution to GHG emissions at 17 and 32% of all human-induced GHG emissions, including land use changes.

However, it also says that agriculture has a significant climate change mitigation potential, which could change the position of agriculture from the second largest emitter to a much smaller emitter or even a net sink. Mitigation options fall into the following categories:

• Cropland management
• Grazing management
• Restoration of organic soils
• Water and rice management
• Land use change, agroforestry, set aside etc
• More efficient fertiliser manafacture
• Eating fewer meat and dairy products

See here for the full report.

Added: 16.01.08

Measuring progress towards carbon reduction in the UK, published by Angela Druckman et al of Surrey University (Druckman A, Bradley P, Papathanasopoulou E, Jackson T. Ecological Economics (2007) shows that that the accounting convention chosen for reporting carbon emissions radically changes the conclusions that may be drawn about UK's progress towards its carbon reduction targets.

According to the UNFCCC reporting convention, carbon emissions fell by 5.6% between 1990 (the Kyoto base year) and 2004. However if calculations are based on figures produced in the UK Environmental Accounts, which additionally account for aviation and shipping emissions (excluded from the UNFCCC convention), the picture is less clear. On this basis, progress towards the Kyoto target appears to be almost wiped out, with carbon emissions having risen by 0.3% over the time period. More significantly, when emissions are estimated according to the consumption perspective, (which the report authors take to be the more appropriate approach), it appears that emissions have risen by 8% over the same time span. The UK's carbon trade balance has also risen from 1% in 1990 to 8% in 2004.The paper also emphasises very strongly the lack of published economic datasets for the UK which provides a major source of uncertainties.

This paper’s findings make the some of the same points as the entry below by Dieter Helm.

The UK has only managed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by exporting them to other countries, according to research by Dieter Helm, a government advisor and professor at Oxford University. Including emissions from imported goods and international transport, its emissions have risen by a fifth since 1990.

Professor Helm argues that important sources such as international transport and tourism are omitted from the UK emissions inventory. If they were included, emissions would have fallen by just 11.9% since 1990, rather than by 15.3% as official figures claim. But he thinks that even this figure underestimates UK emissions. Adding the emissions “embedded” in imported products would mean emissions have actually risen by 19%.

Helm calculated how much carbon was embedded in products imported into the UK by multiplying the monetary value of imports by the carbon intensity of the originating country’s economy measured in tonnes of CO2e per million dollars of GDP. He then subtracted the carbon embedded in UK exports from the overall import footprint to calculate that the UK’s “trade deficit in greenhouse gases” was 341MtCO2e in 2006 – equivalent to around half of the UK’s measured direct emissions. The findings suggests that the UK is responsible for a significant chunk of the growth in emissions in trading partners such as China and India since 1990, with implications for the allocation of greenhouse gas reduction goals in a post-2012 international climate agreement. It strengthens the case for developed countries to take on a greater share of the burden to cut global emissions.

French consultant, Jean-Marc Jancovici, has quantified the contribution of food to GHG emissions in France and comes to the conclusion that the contribution is a little over 30%. More information is available here.

Levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased faster than expected during the past few years, according to an international team of scientists who attribute the sharp rise in CO2 levels to three factors.

Since 2000, a growing global economy, an increase in the carbon emissions required to produce each unit of economic activity, and a decreasing efficiency of carbon sinks on land and in oceans have combined to produce the most rapid seven-year increase in atmospheric CO2 since the beginning of continuous atmospheric monitoring in 1959. The research findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS).

Read coverage of the findings here.

80% Challenge: Delivering a low-carbon UK

The IPPR, and RSPB have published their joint report on the feasibility and costs of achieving an 80% cut in carbon emissions in the UK by 2050, based on modelling from Imperial College and the PSI (using the models developed for the Stern Review and the Energy White Paper). The report includes international aviation emissions, and environmental safeguards on the form of limits on first generation biofuels. It says that achieving an 80% target is feasible, even excluding new nuclear build in the power sector. Costs are in the region of 2-3% of GDP by 2050. The IPPR is also publishing separately a more detailed report on the same material, with more policy context, called 2050 Vision, available on the IPPR website.

Read the press release and download both the 80% Challenge and the 2050 Vision reports, here.

The Carbon Disclosure Project has published its latest survey of the FT top 500 companies listed globally. 77% of FT500 companies and a total of 1,300 corporations answered the fifth CDP request in 2007, a large increase on the 45% of FT500 companies and 235 corporations that answered the first request in 2002.

For info: the Carbon Disclosure Project provides a coordinating secretariat and innovative forum for investor and corporate collaboration on climate change. Based on answers to its annual questionnaire, CDP provides the investment community with information about corporations’ greenhouse gas emissions and climate change management strategies.

As regards food companies, about 42 per cent of those in the food and drugs retailing sector responding to the survey said they had a CO2 emissions reduction programme in place. About 30 per cent of food manufacturers said they had one. According to the CDP however, the major dairy company Danone seemed to show a lack of concern about the growing regulatory and consumer demand that companies reduce their manufacturing impact on the environment. "Danone replied 'none' to questions about regulatory risks associated with climate change," according to the CDP.

You can download the report here . To view GHG emissions and trends for the food sector, see p133 of the full report.

Read the press release here.

Added: 25.10.07 

This Defra publication provides general facts and figures on the UK environment. Information on energy use / CO2 relating to food include can be found on pages 16, 17 and 18. Specifically climate change related charts (eg.Temperature changes, sea level rises, GHG emission trends) can be found on pages 24–28.

For GHG emission figures (that may be more regularly updated than the booklet) see the Key facts and e-Digest pages on the Defra website.

You can read the report here.

The Country Land and Business Association and Savills plc have launched a new free web-based calculator to enable farmers and land managers to work out their carbon (actually GHG) accounts.

The calculator calculates emissions from direct on farm activities (livestock and soil emissions, machinery use), indirect emissions (eg. true GHG emissions from electricity) and other indirect emissions (eg. Feed and fertiliser inputs). It deducts emissions from carbon sequestereed in forests and trees. You can read the press release here, and find links to the calculator itself here.

Note that nitrous oxide, which results from a range of industrial and agricultural processes contributes 7% to the UK's greenhouse gas emissions (expressed in terms of CO2 equivalents) and agriculture contributes to about two thirds of these emissions. In its conclusions the report notes: 'The agriculture industry has a large responsibility for nitrogen in the UK since years of [fertiliser] use has built up a reservoir in soil and water…' It also says: 'In the UK and Europe as a whole, nitrogen fertiliser use appears to have reduced or at least stabilised. However this is not because we have recognised and taken responsibility for our use of nitrogen fertiliser; it is because we have moved the problem elsewhere. We now import far more of our food than we did in the past. Nitrogen is as much a global problem, as a regional problem.'

• Glass manufacture (from a packaging perspective)
• Food and drink processing
• Agricultural waste
• Pig industry
• Poultry industry

Often the reports (eg the pig and poultry ones) are written from an industry perspective.

See the Waste section on this site for more information.

The future economic costs of climate change – known as the costs of inaction – will be significant in Europe, says a new European Environment Agency (EEA) report. The report looks at the economic costs of climate change impacts at a European level. These costs are increasingly shaping the climate policy debate but the report highlights the fact that methodological issues and uncertainties remain in cost estimation. Download the report here.

• heatwaves and higher average temperatures
• floods, storms etc
• vector borne diseases (eg. malaria - apparently very unlikely)
• food borne disease
• water borne disease
• air pollution
• ground level UV

To read the report and for for details of how to comment see here.

'…we estimate that potential premium winegrape production area in the conterminous United States could decline by up to 81% by the late 21st century. While increases in heat accumulation will shift wine production to warmer climate varieties and/or lower-quality wines, and frost constraints will be reduced, increases in the frequency of extreme hot days (>35°C) in the growing season are projected to eliminate winegrape
production in many areas of the United States. Furthermore, grape and wine production will likely be restricted to a narrow West Coast region and the Northwest and Northeast, areas currently facing challenges related to excess moisture.'

Warm Words II: How the climate story is evolving and the lessons we can learn for encouraging public action, published in 2007 by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) revisits research that the IPPR published last year which examined the public discourse of climate change in the UK; this report highlights what has changed since the 2006 publication. The report looks at language around climate change both in the national media (newspapers, television etc) and in the local press.

You can read the report here.

The report can be ordered free here.

You can download the report here.