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Jurisdiction: United Kingdom
Commencement: 1st July 2023
Amends: New Legislation
A framework is introduced to enable the monitoring and review of carbon emission targets, in accordance with Part 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008.
From 31st March 2024, the Secretary of State must review the maximum allowable carbon emission targets*.
*The maximum allowable carbon emission targets is the maximum carbon emissions that may be released in order to achieve the UK’s commitment under the Kyoto Protocol.
This review must identify whether the maximum allowable carbon emissions is greater than:
*Carbon budget is any carbon budget made under The Carbon Budgets Order 2009.
**The second commitment period is the second emissions reduction period under the Kyoto Protocol which ran from 2013 to 2020.
The review must consider the net emissions reported:
The Secretary of State must, where the maximum allowable carbon emissions is greater than the carbon or second commitment budgets, calculate the excess emissions using UK assigned units*.
*UK assigned units are units assigned to the United Kingdom under the Kyoto Protocol for the purpose of determining compliance.
N.B. Excess UK assigned emissions must not be used to offset greenhouse gas emissions.
There are no duties for organisations under these Regulations; duties are held by the Secretary of State.
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Jurisdiction: United Kingdom
Commencement: 15th February 2022
Amends: The Carbon Accounting Regulations 2009
For the purposes of Part I of the Climate Change Act 2008, these Regulations set out the following as carbon units:
Each carbon unit has a value of 1 tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent.
A duty has been placed upon the Secretary of State to open a ‘credit’ account in which the UK’s carbon credit is to be held. A credit may only be taken out of the account for the purposes of cancellation, unless the registry administration is satisfied that certain conditions have been met.
Carbon units may be transferred to the net UK carbon account by any person, but are only credited if a minister of the Crown makes a declaration to that effect.
The Secretary of State sets the circumstances in which carbon units are to be credited to and debited from the net UK carbon account during the 2008-2012 budgetary period as a result of the operation of European Union Emissions Trading Scheme.
The regulations introduce provisions for carbon units to be debited from the net carbon account during 2008-2012 budgetary period where carbon units have been disposed of in the course of a given year.
The Secretary of State is required to cancel all the units in the credited account and to cancel a further amount of units representing the difference between the UK’s carbon budget and the UK’s assigned amount under the Kyoto Protocol as is attributable to net UK emissions.
A register must be kept by the Secretary of State containing details of the amounts of carbon units credited to and debited from the net UK carbon account and the amounts of carbon units cancelled.
The carbon accounting system for the third carbon budget year (2018-2022) is updated. The system is used to monitor compliance with the targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, set out by the Climate Change Act 2008.
Mechanisms are provided to account for the credits and debits that resulted from the final year, when the United Kingdom (UK) was still a European Union (EU) Member State and participated in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).
The accounting system for the third year (2020) of the third carbon budget (2018-2022) is updated by:
*Domestic aviation means flights between airports within the UK.
The Secretary of State is required to cancel any carbon units held at the end of the third carbon budget period.
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Jurisdiction: Scotland
Commencement: 10th November 2021
Amends:
The Carbon Accounting Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2010 introduce a scheme for carbon accounting for the purposes of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. The Regulations introduce a carbon accounting system which will be used to monitor compliance with targets set for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Regulations set out the following as carbon units;
Each carbon unit has a value of 1 tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent.
The Regulations require that Scottish Ministers must open a carbon account ‘the Scottish credit account’, in which Scotland’s carbon credits may be held, by the 1st August 2010. Scottish Ministers may only transfer a carbon unit from the Scottish credit account to either the UK national cancellation account or the UK credit account.
The Regulations make provisions for the circumstances in which carbon units may be credited to the net Scottish emissions account (NSEA) and carbon units referred to include both those used by participating in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and the national credit scheme. The Scottish Ministers set the circumstances in which carbon units are to be credited to and debited from the net carbon account as a result of the operation of European Union Emissions Trading Scheme in respect of each year in the period 2010 – 2016.
Scottish Ministers are required to maintain a register containing information in respect of carbon units credited to and debited from the NSEA.
A technical change is made to the definition of ‘registry administrator’ to reflect changes already made to associated legislation due to the UK’s exit from the EU.
There are no changes to duties.
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Jurisdiction: UK
Commencement: 23rd June 2021
Amends: The Carbon Budget Orders 2009 – 2021
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Jurisdiction: UK
Commencement: 24 March 2021
Amends: The Carbon Accounting Regulations 2009
The Carbon Accounting Regulations 2009 make requirements about carbon units and carbon accounting for the purposes of Part 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008. They introduce a carbon accounting system which will be used to monitor compliance with the targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
These 2021 Regulations give the calculation to be used to take emissions regarding the European Union Emission Trading Scheme into account for the 2019 year. This creates duties for the Government only.
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Jurisdiction: UK
Commencement: 28th February 2020
These Regulations place duties on the Government and Secretary of State. There are no compliance duties for organisations.
The principal reason for these Regulations (the ‘2020 Regulations’) is to ensure the accounting for the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) at stationary installations and domestic aviation covers the first year (2018) of the third carbon budget period by:
Provisions for carbon accounting are made to determine the net UK carbon account (the amount of net UK emissions of targeted greenhouse gases for the period, either reduced or increased by the amount of carbon units in accordance with these 2020 Regulations).
The amount of net UK carbon accounting for different periods determines whether the targets relating to emission reductions have been met. These 2020 Regulations are relevant to the third carbon budget covering 2018-2022.
EU ETS (stationary installations)
For the first year of the third budget period, EU Member States did not receive a national cap of emission units due to the EU ETS operating at installation level. Therefore instead of using a fixed cap, a notional cap (known as the annual allocation) is created by adding together the volume of EU allowances to UK operators. The UK notional cap is 152,311,507 carbon units.
Circumstances in which carbon units are to be credited to and debited from the net UK carbon account in 2018 as a result of the operation of the EU ETS in that year are set. If the amount of carbon units surrendered by operators of installations in the UK in 2018 was:
Domestic aviation carbon units
Currently the EU ETS provides a cap for aviation emissions and units to confirm compliance. It does not provide a cap for UK only domestic aviation emissions (flights between UK airports), therefore it is not possible to distinguish between domestic aviation emissions and international aviation emissions.
Carbon units to be credited or debited from the net UK carbon account must take into account domestic aviation emissions during 2018. The domestic aviation cap (DAC), expressed in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, must be calculated in order to find out which carbon units are to be credited and debited. The calculation can be found below:
E is the mean of the EEA aviation emissions for the years 2004, 2005, and 2006.
F is the domestic aviation emissions for 2010.
G is the EEA aviation emissions for 2010.
If domestic aviation emissions in 2018 were:
During a period beginning on 1st January 2023 and ending on 14th May 2024, the Secretary of State (SoS) must ensure that each carbon unit credited to the net UK carbon account, in respect of 2018 is cancelled; this is to help meet the third carbon budget.
Credited carbon units will also be cancelled under these 2020 Regulations if an equivalent operation under Regulation (EU) 389/2013 establishing a Union Registry is performed.
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