Climate change: UK takes legal lead

guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 27 2008 00.01 GMT

The UK was set to make history last night when the climate change bill received royal assent and brought into law the world's first legally binding targets for a nation to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.
This and future governments will be committed to cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050. Progress towards this target will be laid out and monitored by a new independent climate change committee, which on Monday will recommend the first three five-year "budgets".
The committee will not be able to hold ministers to account if they miss the targets, but will make an annual report to parliament on progress towards the budgets. Other countries have announced similar or deeper emissions cuts, but none have committed them selves by law.
At the same time the energy bill, which includes measures to enable energy companies to pay "feed-in tariffs" to homeowners, community groups and businesses who export spare low-carbon energy to the national grid, was also approved.
Environment campaigners are angry, however, about elements of the planning bill, the third "green" bill on the schedule, which will set up a national committee to decide on big developments, leading to accusations that it will be used to push through big infrastructure schemes such as the expansion of Heathrow.