EMEA > Key climate-related takeaways from the UK 2016 budget

Key climate-related takeaways from the UK 2016 budget

Published 14:27 on March 16, 2016  /  Last updated at 17:15 on March 16, 2016  /  EMEA, EU ETS

Herein are Carbon Pulse's main climate-related takeaways from the UK's 2016 budget, which was delivered on Wednesday by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

Below are Carbon Pulse’s main climate-related takeaways from the UK’s 2016 budget, which was delivered on Wednesday by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne:

  • The UK will abolish its Carbon Reduction Commitment energy efficiency scheme after 2019, but will neutralise the lower revenues with an increase in April that year in the Climate Change Levy (which was effectively transformed into an energy tax last year).
  • The government will earmark £730 million to buy renewable power output in new capacity auctions.
  • It will do away with the UK’s Petroleum Revenue Tax, throwing its battered North Sea oil sector an lifeline.
  • The UK Treasury said that due to ongoing low EU carbon prices, it will maintain its £18/tonne cap on the country’s carbon floor price, uprating it with inflation in 2020-21.  However, it added that the government would set out the rate’s long-term direction in its Autumn 2016 budget.
  • The resource budget for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has been set at £1.4 billion in 2015-16, falling to £900 million in 2016-17, £1 billion in 2017-18 and 2018-19, and back to £900 million in 2019-20.

By Mike Szabo – mike@carbon-pulse.com