Recommends Diversion of all Biodegradable Waste by 2025 : Climate Committee Report Urges Government to Tackle Organic Waste

The UK’s Committee on Climate Change’s (CCC) fifth carbon budget has urged the government increase the pace of carbon abatement, particularly within the farming and waste treatment industries.

The CCC is an independent statutory body, which was established under the Climate Change Act (2008) to advise UK and devolved administration governments on setting and meeting carbon budgets, and preparing for climate change.

The report fulfills the Committee’s duty, under the Climate Change Act, to recommend to the Government the level of the fifth carbon budget. This budget will set the limit on UK emissions of greenhouse gases in the period 2028-32.

The fifth carbon budget covers the period 2028-2032 and is aimed at ensuring that the UK remains on course to meet the Climate Change Act’s target to reduce UK greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050.

Addressing the need to implement food waste collection services in England, the Committee said: “Our Central scenario for UK abatement includes the impact of devolved policies to divert biodegradable waste streams from landfill, and then across the UK by 2025.”

On decarbonising farming, the report concluded that, to meet the fifth carbon budget, there will need to be: “increased take-up of: crops and soils measures that mainly target the reduction of N2O through improved efficiency of fertiliser use (e.g. use of cover crops and improved manure management practices); livestock measures targeting animal diets, health, and breeding that reduce methane; waste and manure management, including anaerobic digestion; and improvements in the fuel efficiency of stationary machinery.”

Commenting on the report Charlotte Morton, chief executive of the Anaerobic Digestions and Bioresources Association (ADBA) said:

“The government’s own advisors, the Committee on Climate Change, have made it clear that the UK needs to step up the pace to meet our carbon targets and deliver sustainable growth – and that anaerobic digestion will play an important role in crucial sectors like farming.

“Through its vital role in decarbonising electricity, heat, farming and transport, anaerobic digestion (AD) has the potential to reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions alone by 4% – that’s about £1.2 billion saved in carbon abatement costs.

“Aside from the avoided fossil fuel emissions borne from generating renewable energy, anaerobic digestion also reduces emissions from rotting manure, landfilled food waste and expensive carbon-intensive manufactured fertiliser. Taken together, ADBA calculates that these savings are worth £65 per megawatt hour in carbon abatement – a substantial contribution that establishes AD as a cost-effective technology for delivering green baseload energy for bill payers.”

FIT for Purpose?

According to ADBA, despite the Committee’s recent report demonstrating how low-carbon electricity is the most cost-effective way to meet the need for more generation in the 2020s, and evading the impending capacity crunch, recent amendments to the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) have stalled AD’s prospects for delivering additional baseload energy.

“DECC’s decision to remove pre-accreditation from the Feed-in Tariff scheme has killed off AD’s further growth prospects because investor confidence has been crippled by uncertainty,” explained Morton.

“This is further compounded by the government’s decision to place severely restrictive FIT support through caps on industry deployment – not only will investors not know what financial return they might achieve when a plant is commissioned, but they may not receive any support at all,” she continued.

“With support for renewable electricity, AD could deliver the same quantity of vital baseload energy as Hinkley Point C even before new nuclear comes online – and moreover at less cost and risk. Not only does a domestic source of baseload electricity improve energy security, but could also create 35,000 largely rural jobs while cutting billions in UK carbon abatement costs, improving food production and extracting the greatest possible value from our food waste.”

ADBA added that the CCC’s chief executive, Matthew Bell, will be addressing next Thursday’s ADBA National Conference and will consider how the Chancellor’s commitment to extending the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) until 2021 will help decarbonise not just our heat network, but also transport – notably heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) which are responsible for about a quarter of road emissions.

The Westminster-based event on 3 December will consider the impact of policy changes and the future low-carbon pathways for biomethane’s use with key speakers, including senior representatives from: the Department for Transport (DfT); Scotia Gas Networks (SGN); and the Institute of Gas Engineers and Managers (IGEM).

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