Call for better data to measure net zero progress

Poor availability of emissions data is holding back the ability to measure the impact of decarbonisation efforts in manufacturing, the independent Climate Change Committee has warned in its latest annual progress report.

The Committee reports that, across the economy, current government strategies will not deliver net zero and tangible progress is lagging behind policy ambition. While credible plans exist for over a third of the UK’s required emissions reductions to meet the Sixth Carbon Budget in the mid-2030s – and a further quarter will be managed “with a fair wind” – it says a further third or more “cannot be relied on”.

Direct emissions in the manufacturing and construction sectors – which are combined for the purposes of the report – were 65 MtCO2e in 2021 which marks a rebound to 2019 emissions levels following a fall of 5% in 2020 due to Covid, it says.

The longer term trend in emissions from manufacturing and construction has been downwards, with a 19% reduction from 2009 to 2019.

However the report says progress in the sector is hard to ascertain due to the poor availability of relevant data across the various sub-sectors, “which critically limits monitoring and evaluation of policy implementation”.

As such, the Committee urges the government to review, invest in, and initiate reform of industrial decarbonisation data collection and annual reporting, by the first quarter of next year. In particular, additional data collection and reporting will be required to allow for effective tracking of energy efficiency, material efficiency, fuel switching and carbon capture and storage, it says, as well as more holistic measurement on a product or whole life cycle carbon basis.

CCC chairman Lord Deben said: “The UK is a champion in setting new climate goals, now we must be world beaters in delivering them. I welcome the government’s restated commitment to net zero, but holes must be plugged in its strategy urgently. The window to deliver real progress is short. We are eagle eyed for the promised action.”

The report also calls for the government to set out clearer ambitions on energy efficiency for the manufacturing sector and highlights four main policy gaps which should be filled. These are electrification, improvements in resource efficiency, low carbon off-road mobile machinery, and incentives for fuel switching for small facilities.