Climate change and energy

Background

The 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that: climate change is happening, it is very likely caused by human activities, and addressing climate change is an urgent task. It also concluded that such trends, unabated, would mean temperature increases by the end of this century up to 4 degrees centigrade and sea level rising by up to 60 centimetres-with pervasive and prolonged consequences for ecosystems, food and water supplies and human settlements. Given the unprecedented broadness, gravity and depth of the impacts, we must rely on co-operation among all countries to combat climate change.

Objectives
The mission of the Climate Change Section of the British Embassy is to help support a shift to low carbon economy in China. We are also working with China to achieve an ambitious agreement to a post-Kyoto international framework to reduce emissions globally.

China has embarked on ambitious and transformational domestic climate change action, through targets on energy efficiency (20% improvement per unit of GDP between 2005 and 2010), renewables (15% of the energy mix by 2015) and afforestation (20% coverage by 2010). We aim to support China in achieving these objectives and in exploring the opportunities for an even greater acceleration to a low carbon economy.

UK- China Co-operation
We aim to achieve our objectives in a number of ways, including through bilateral policy dialogue, mitigation, adaptation, technical and financial support and capacity building by involving people from government, business, science and technology fields, and academia.

In September 2006, MOUs to establish UK-China Climate Change Working Group and UK-China Energy Group were signed. The UK-China Climate Change Working Group has been facilitating scientific collaboration on climate change, policy and market-mechanisms for promoting energy efficiency, policy dialogue on possible forms of long-term cooperative action on climate change, the economics of climate change and the development of the EU-China cooperation on Near-Zero Emissions power generation technology through Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). The China-UK Energy Group provides a framework for both Governments to broaden cooperation to all upstream and downstream energy sectors, including renewable energy and energy efficiency. It enables government energy policy discussion, particularly in the area of energy security and for UK and Chinese energy companies to develop beneficial partnerships in the energy sector. The MOU on UK-China Climate Change Working Group can be found at
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/internat/devcountry/pdf/china-memorandum.pdf

In Jan 2008, during Prime Minister Gordon Brownˇs visit to China for UK-China Summit, the UK and China signed Joint Declaration on Climate Change to further strengthen co-operation through a partnership in this field, in particular, co-operation on adaptation to climate change, low carbon technology development and transfer, clean energy, energy efficiency, research on programmatic CDM and the Near Zero Emissions Coal Project.
UK companies are engaging with Chinese enterprises to provide technical solutions that help to reduce energy consumption and reduce emissions. The UKTI section of the Embassy supports British companies involved in climate change activities and helps them enter into the Chinese market. A large number of British companies are involved in the Clean Development Mechanism. Details of UKTIˇs work in China are at www.uktradeinvest.gov.uk

DFID China are also working with the Chinese government on adaptation and on a shift to low carbon. Details of DFIDˇs work in China are at www.dfid.gov.uk

Project Funding
The Embassy manages two funds which support projects on climate change, the Strategic Programme Fund, and the Public Diplomacy Pilot Project.

Strategic Program Fund (SPF)
Through the Strategic Program Fund (SPF), formerly known as the Global Opportunities Fund (GOF), the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office funds projects in a number of countries to support action on global issues in areas of strategic importance to the UK. Through the SPF Climate Change and Energy Program, the UK is supporting a number of projects in China working on climate change, renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy security. More details of the SPF such as focus areas, objectives and application procedure are available on the FCO website at http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-the-fco/what-we-do/funding-programmes/strat-progr-fund/

Climate Change Public Diplomacy Pilot Programme
The objective of the Climate Change Public Diplomacy Pilot Project is to achieve climate security by promoting a faster transition to a sustainable low carbon global economy. The project will last for two years from 2007 to 2009 with an aim to increase awareness on climate change and the needs to move towards a low carbon development path. The project serves as a platform in providing capacity building and experience sharing opportunities to key target audience such as economists, policy makers, scientists and business people. The core message from the Climate Change Public Diplomacy Pilot Project is that economic security, energy security and political security depends on climate security and early action to stabilise concentrations of GHG in the atmosphere is vital. The project consists of one overarching theme and five specific themes focused on the economic of climate change, energy security, political security, science and industry. For more details on this programme please contact Ms. Lanlan Lu: Lu.lanlan@fco.gov.uk

UK action on Climate Change and Energy

At home, the UK:

Published the 'Energy White Paper' on 23 May 2007. The White Paper contains an ambition to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 60% by around 2050. The full document is available at http://www.berr.gov.uk/energy/whitepaper/
The Government has set a target of 10% of electricity supply from renewable energy by 2010. In 2005, 4% of the UK's electricity supply came from eligible sources of renewable energy.
Is successfully combining the goals of sustaining economic growth and controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Between 1990 and 2002 the UK economy grew by 36%, while emissions fell by 15.3%.
Introduced the Climate Change Bill was in 2007. It contains provisions that will set a legally binding target for reducing UK carbon dioxide emission by at least 26 per cent by 2020 and at least 60 per cent by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. Key areas include requiring the Government to publish five yearly carbon budgets as from 2008, creating a Committee on Climate Change to advise the Government on the levels of carbon budgets to be set, the balance between domestic emissions reductions and the use of carbon credits, and whether the 2050 target should be increased. The bill can be accessed at http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2007-08/climatechangehl.html
Published the Energy Bill in 2008. It contains the legislative provisions required to implement UK energy policy following the publication of the Energy Review 2006 and the Energy White Paper 2007. The bill can be accessed at http://www.berr.gov.uk/energy/bill/page40931.html

Internationally, the UK:

Is working to drive progress on the international negotiations to tackle climate change.
Produced the She Stern report, which demonstrated that the economic costs of climate change, if unchecked, would be comparable to the economic effects of a Great Depression combined with a World War. The costs of stabilising the climate are significant but manageable. The worst impacts can be substantially reduced if greenhouse gas levels are stabilised between 450 and 550ppm CO2 equivalent (CO2e). Estimates of the annual costs of stabilising between 500 and 550ppm CO2e are around 1% of global GDP, if we start to take strong action now. The full report is available at http://www.sternreview.org.uk

More related Information:

UK in China - the British embassy in Beijing

Climate change and energy