The Carbon Plan

The Carbon Plan, first published in March 2011, is a Government-wide plan of action on climate change, including domestic and international activity, which sets out department by department, actions and deadlines for the next 5 years.

The Plan presents ongoing and planned cross-Government action on climate change with specific deadlines providing for both internal accountability and public transparency. Quarterly updates on progress against actions within the Plan are published on the No.10 website.

The Carbon Plan has been published initially as a ‘draft’ that takes account of the first three UK carbon budgets (covering the period 2008-2022), which have already been set. In recognition that the fourth carbon budget (2023-2027) will be set in law in June, we will publish an updated ‘live’ Carbon Plan in October which takes the four carbon budgets into account.

The draft Carbon Plan can be downloaded below. A full list of actions can also be found in the accompanying excel spreadsheet. The more detailed report on meeting the first three carbon budgets, as required under the Climate Change Act, can be found in the Low Carbon Transition Plan. 

Note: Since the publication of the November Business Plan, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has announced (on 7 February 2011) that the first review of the Feed in Tariffs (FITs) scheme for small scale low carbon electricity generation in advance would begin in advance of the dates shown in the Carbon Plan, and would be completed by April 2012. The review will also include fast-track consideration of large scale solar projects (over 50kW) with a view to making any resulting changes to tariffs as soon as practical, subject to consultation and Parliamentary scrutiny as required by the Energy Act 2008 and a short study into the take-up of FITs for farm based Anaerobic Digestion plants. Broad terms of reference for the review are available.