Greenhouse Emissions — What Needs to Be Done?

The UK government has set guidelines and laid out their plans in hope of reducing their output of greenhouse gasses to zero, resulting in the country becoming the cleanest worldwide. This is going to be quite the task given that the nation has a total emission annually surpassing 500 million tonnes of CO_2.

The UK has drafted in advice from the Climate Change Committee in hopes they will share methods and assist in the process of eradicating all forms of carbon emission. The move was prompted by the release of a UN report which warned that CO₂ emissions must be entirely stopped if dangerous climate disruption is to be avoided.

The UK’s Climate Minister has previously shared in an interview with BBC News: “The report was a really stark and sober piece of work — a good piece of work. Now we know what the goal is, and we know what some of the levers are. But for me, the constant question is: what is the cost and who’s going to bear that, both in the UK and in the global economy. The question is: what does government need to do, where can the private sector come in, and what technologies will come through?”

Here, Volkswagen servicing firm Vindis, explore some of the key areas of the UK’s emission problems that will have to be renovated or adjusted in order for the target to be met nationwide.

Near Carbon-free Fuels

ICL uncovered data which was then reported by The Guardian. This showcased that the renewable energy supplied from numerous sources the capacity of fossil fuel-based energy for the first time. With the amount of renewable capacity trebling in the same five-year period that fossil fuels decreased by one-third, the capacity of biomass, hydropower, solar and wind power hit 41.9 gigawatts and the capacity of gas, coal and oil-fired power plants recorded in at 41.2 gigawatts between July and September.

It was observed and broadcasted by Dr Iain Staffell that “Britain’s power system is slowly but surely walking away from fossil fuels, and [the quarter between July and September] saw a major milestone on the journey.”

The UK managed to set a record that was to go for three days straight powered in whole without coal (76 hours consecutively) in 2018. This was before a report from Imperial College London which was commissioned by Drax suggested that coal supplied only 1.3 per cent of Britain’s entire use of electricity during the second quarter of 2018 — furnaces based at coal-fired power stations throughout the country were completely unused for 12 days in June last year too.

Better Insulate Homes

BBC News shared in early 2017 that the UK had to cut emissions minimum 80 per cent compared to that of 1990 and have set themselves internally the deadline of 2050. What’s more, a third of those carbon emissions had been recorded from heating draughty buildings across the nation.

Green Building Council who are leading construction firms combined to form a singular entity, stated previously in Parliament that twenty five million existing homes do not fit the insulating levels required to fit the 2050 plans, meaning that all of these buildings must be refurbished before that date. According to calculations, these findings mean that the rate of refurbishment stood at a rate of 1.4 homes had to be worked on every minute from the beginning of 2017.

Carbon emissions are not the only beneficial part of insulating homes properly. The Green Building Council’s head Julie Hirigoyen explains: “People will have warmer homes and lower bills; they will live longer, happier lives; we will be able to address climate change and carbon emissions. “We will also be creating many thousands of jobs and exporting our best skills in innovation.”

Fuel-Efficient Vehicles

The UK government has already acted to try and make our roads cleaner by announcing that new petrol and diesel cars and vans will be banned across the nation from 2040.

While we may be a couple of decades away from seeing this ban come into force, it appears that an increasing number of British motorists are already exploring what’s available when it comes to alternative-fuel vehicles.

Next Green Car has recorded the total quantity of new plug-in car registrations and accordingly shared that the figures jumped from 3,500 in 2013 to over 195,000 towards the end of January 2019. Furthermore, figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders highlighted that electric car sales across the UK has shifted from only close to 500 being registered each month in the early part of 2014 to an average of 5,000 per month throughout 2018.

Alternative fuel sources which are being introduced although a positive change, means that there must be a huge improvement in infrastructure. While the UK’s network of electric vehicle charging points was recorded in at just a few hundred units as of 2011, there had been more than 5,800 charging locations, 9,800 charging devices and 16,700 connectors installed by June 2018.

There is still a long way to go when it comes to all UK drivers buying a vehicle that doesn’t produce carbon emissions directly. The latest vehicle data from the SMMT stated that the car registrations market share for January 2019 was 64.08 per cent petrol, 29.08 per cent diesel and 6.84 per cent alternative-fuel vehicles, for example — but it appears that things are at least moving in the right direction.

Although optimistic, the passion and ambition of the UK to achieve such a steep target and goal is admirable and deserves our time and dedication to assist in whatever way we can in order to ensure the goal was reached.