Making a Climate Commitment: Analysis of the first report (2008) of the UK Committee on Climate Change. A research report by The Tyndall Centre, University of Manchester.

The Climate Change Act 2008 represents a significant step in the UK’s effort toaddress climate change and demonstrates that scientific evidence, at least to some extent, is informing policy development.The Act, amongst other things, establishes the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), an approach to setting five-yearly carbon budgets and a strengthened 2050 target. The budget setting is particularly significant as it provides a valuable mechanism for recognising the importance of cumulative emissions and pathways for addressing climate change. The CCC’s inaugural Report sets out a series of recommendations to Government for the first three budget periods up to 2022, along with suggestions for how trading of emissions can be used to help realise them. This research report, prepared for Friends of the Earth, sets out to critically analyse these recommendationsand their associated assumptions, particularly with respect to:• Emissions reductions and pathways required to meet the Government’scommitment for keeping temperature rises below 2°C;• The implications of following the less ambitious pathway described in the CCC’s‘interim’ budget compared to the ‘intended’ budget;• The potential implications of using emissions buy-outs, with a correspondingreduction in domestic abatement, to achieve the proposed budgets; and• Potential lock-in to infrastructure and behaviour associated with taking particularpathways that makes achievement of the 2050 target increasingly difficult