Draft Climate Change Act 2008 (Credit Limit) Order 2021 — 16 Jun 2021 at 19:38

The majority of MPs voted for no change in the maximum amount by which the UK's greenhouse gas emissions may be offset by credits relating to overseas activity when determining performance against the UK's carbon budget. As a result of this vote the carbon credit cap for 2023-2027 was set at the same level as it had been in 2013-17 and 2018-22.

The amount remained at fifty-five million tones of carbon-dioxide equivalent over a four year period.

The UK has a "carbon account" and carbon emissions, corrected for credits and debits, are compared with a "carbon budget" set by the Climate Change Act 2008 and associated regulations.

Credit carbon units (credits)^[1] relate to the offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions from outside the UK.

The motion approved by a majority of MPs in this vote was:

• That the draft Climate Change Act 2008 (Credit Limit) Order 2021, which was laid before this House on 13 May, be approved.

The regulations set a cap on the amount of carbon units that may be credited to the net UK carbon account for the 2023-2027 budgetary period at 55,000,000 carbon units. (Each unit represents one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gasses). The limit excludes credits resulting from the European Union Emissions Trading System.^[2]

The Climate Change Act 2008 (Credit Limit) Order 2011 set the limit on the net amount of carbon units that may be credited to the net UK carbon account for the 2013-2017 budgetary period at 55,000,000 carbon units.

The Climate Change Act 2008 (Credit Limit) Order 2016 set the limit on the net amount of carbon units that may be credited to the net UK carbon account for the 2018-2022 budgetary period at 55,000,000 carbon units.

The regulations approved in this vote set a cap on the use of credits which was the same as that set for the preceding two carbon budget periods.

During a House of Lords debate on a previous order Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy stated^[3]:

• the order sets the credit limit for the third carbon budget at 55 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. That is about 2% of the third carbon budget. It is the same amount of flexibility as was agreed for the second carbon budget credit limit.
• I know that we are not in quite the same place as the Committee on Climate Change... It recommended a zero credit limit. However, the Government have concluded that it is best to maintain a small amount of flexibility over the third carbon budget period—of course, we may not need it.

It is not possible to ascribe a stance an MP wishing to vote for "measures to prevent climate change" would have taken here, so the vote is not taken into account in making statements on TheyWorkForYou on an MP's voting record on "measures to prevent climate change". If offsetting UK emissions via "credit carbon units" is considered to function then if the emissions are in the UK or elsewhere shouldn't be relevant.

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• [1] Regulation 5 of the The Carbon Accounting Regulations 2009
• [2] Explanatory memorandum to the Climate Change Act 2008 (Credit Limit) Order 2021, Legislation.gov.uk
• [3] Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, House of Lords, 19 July 2016

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