The government has promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than two thirds (68%) of what they were in 1990 by 2030.
The announcement is what’s known as an NDC – or nationally determined contribution – and is a key factor in efforts to tackle climate change.
Under the Paris climate change agreement of 2015, all countries are obliged to update their commitments to cut emissions and deliver NDCs by the end of 2020.
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Do the PM’s green plans stack up?
The UK is the first major economy to announce its NDC and is hoping its promise to effectively increase the emissions reduction from 53% to 68% will encourage other countries to follow suit.
The emissions are measured against the level they were in 1990.
But it’s an ambitious pledge, given current figures show the UK has only reduced its emissions by 45% since 1990.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “We are taking the lead with an ambitious new target to reduce our emissions by 2030 faster than any major economy. But this is a global effort.”
The government is making the pledge a week before hosting a virtual climate ambition event marking a year to the landmark COP26 climate conference, which has been delayed until November 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The UK’s emissions promise is in line with what the Committee on Climate Change, which independently advises the government, says is necessary to meet the legally-binding target of the UK reaching net zero by 2050.
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Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said: “Britain is out ahead of most of the other big nations, it’s committed more than the EU is likely to do, and it’s more than the US is likely to be able to do, and certainly more than the likes of Australia have done.
“It’s roughly on track for getting to the legally-binding net zero target and the hope clearly is that it will encourage other countries to come forward.
“There are a number of big countries that haven’t put forward this kind of commitment, for example India, and Russia is another.”
But Professor Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, speaking to Sky News from Bangladesh, said current promises aren’t ambitious enough to save countries like his from catastrophic climate change.
He said: “We are at the end of receiving those climate impacts, so they [the UK government] may like to pat themselves on the back – and we have to acknowledge they’ve done a bit.
“It’s not that they aren’t doing anything, but they are simply not doing enough. And the enough is what matters.
“It’s whether they can affect the impacts of the climate on the most vulnerable countries and communities and they’re not going to be able to do that, so from our perspective it isn’t enough.
“It seems they don’t have any announcements on supporting vulnerable countries for adaptation and we would have expected that to be included and speaks to the lack of credibility to the COP26 presidency.
“I think the 68% reduction is a move in the right direction. However, from the perspective of the most vulnerable countries it isn’t enough because it won’t keep warming to 1.5 degrees.”
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Labour’s shadow business secretary Ed Miliband said the party welcomed the “important strengthening” of the 2030 target, but said it was the “minimum we should aim for”.
“Our goal should be to go further and faster, cutting the significant majority of emissions in this decisive decade, which is the right way to lead in creating the climate jobs of the future and keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees,” he said.
“As we move to this higher target, it is clear there is now a yawning gap between the government’s aspirations and its policies to deliver them.
“The government didn’t have the policies to meet their previous target and the chasm will be even greater now.”
International attention will now turn to countries like the US, China and other major economies to speed up their promises to reduce emissions in the run up to the COP.