The fifth annual statement of emissions required under section 16 of the Climate Change Act 2008 published by the Department for Energy and Climate Change shows that the UK has met its first carbon budget.

The statement sets out the steps taken to calculate the “net UK carbon account” in respect of 2012 – the final year of the first carbon budget.

The net UK carbon account is what is compared against the carbon budgets to determine whether they are being met, and must not exceed the level of the carbon budget at the end of each budgetary period.

The net UK carbon account is calculated by first calculating net UK emissions, adjusted to account for any carbon units which have been brought in from overseas by Government and others to offset UK emissions, and UK carbon units which have been disposed of to a third party outside the UK.

The statement shows that, in 2012, net UK emissions (excluding the impact of trading within the EU ETS) were 573.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent (MtCO2e). Taking into account the use of these carbon units, the net UK carbon account in 2012 was 587.1 MtCO2e. The difference of 13.6 MtCO2e between the net UK emissions and the net UK carbon account, resulted from the sale of 14.5 MtCO2e worth of carbon units to companies in the UK operating under the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), and 0.9 MtCO2e worth of carbon units being cancelled.

 The National Statistics used to compile this statement show that UK emissions for the first carbon budget period were 2,982 MtCO2e, 36 MtCO2e below the cap of 3,018 MtCO2e - confirming that the UK has met its first carbon budget.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, the UK uses 1990 as the base year for carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions, and 1995 as the base year for the fluorinated gases (or F-gases: hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride). To ensure consistency with international obligations, the same base year for each greenhouse gas is used under the Climate Change Act.

The Climate Change Act 2008 introduced a legally binding target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% below the 1990 baseline in 2050, with an interim target to reduce emissions by at least 34% in 2020.

The Act also introduced ‘carbon budgets’, which set the trajectory to ensure the targets in the Act are met. The budgets represent legally-binding limits on the total amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted in the UK for a given five-year period.

Annual statements must be produced by 31 March each year, and final statements for each budgetary period – which will combine the results of each annual statement for the budgetary period to determine whether the budget has been met – must be produced by 31 May in the second year following the end of the budgetary period, which is 2014 for the first carbon budget.

The first budgetary period runs from 2008 to 2012 (3,018 MtCO2e), and the next two budgets cover the periods 2013-2017(2,782 MtCO2e), and 2018-2022 (2,544 MtCO2e).