Carbon emissions fall by 6% in UK

According to a new report, CO₂ emissions in the UK fell by 6% last year thanks to a record 5% decline in the use of coal.

The London-based Carbon Brief (www.carbonbrief.org) organisation says that this was due to “cheap natural gas, plentiful renewables, energy conservation and a tax on greenhouse-gas emissions”.

Three coal-fired power stations were closed in 2016 — Longannet in Fife, Ferrybridge C in West Yorkshire and Rugeley in Staffordshire.

Carbon Brief said the latest reductions mean that the UK’s CO₂ emissions were 36% below 1990 levels; they have not been so low since the late 19th century. It also attributes the decline in emissions from coal to the Carbon Tax, which doubled in 2015 to £18 per tonne of CO₂.

A spokesman said: “The Carbon Tax has delivered the killer blow to coal in the past 18 months to two years. It has really changed the economics for it.”

The Carbon Brief analysis uses Department of Energy figures on energy use and comes ahead of the department’s own estimates for UK CO₂ emissions, which are due to be published at the end of the month.