Nicola Foate
and
Peter Hawkes, of respectively Herbert Smith’s Energy and Environmental Groups, examine some recent measures of the British Government to combat climate change by encouraging the use of renewable sources of energy for generating electricity.
The international community has put in place a framework for action on climate change through agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. The UK Governmentintends to ratify the Kyoto Protocol before the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg this summer.1 The UK’s target under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 12.5% below 1990 levels by 2012 will then become legally binding on the UK Government. To ensure that this target, and its own more challenging target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 1990 levels by 2010, is achieved, the UK Climate Change Programme (UKCCP) was developed.
