Carbon Reduction Commitment
Our area leads the field in many ways on environmental awareness and eco-conscious living. As well as being designated an official Low Carbon Neighbourhood, the Transition Town Brixton Movement and the Brixton Green Project are helping to build the country’s first inner city model of a low-carbon future.
So it’s good to see complementary steps being taken on the national level, with the announced introduction in April of the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC). This will introduce mandatory carbon emissions trading for all businesses and organizations who consume more than 6,000MWh per year of electricity (equivalent to an annual electricity bill of about £500,000) – meaning that organizations who manage to reduce their emissions are able to sell their excess energy on, whilst those who continue to be high consumers will bear the financial burden of having to purchase additional carbon allowances.
The scheme begins in April 2010, when organizations will have to record and report their carbon emissions over the course of the year, before purchasing their first emissions allowance based on those figures in April 2011. Initially, carbon emission allowances will be sold at the fixed price of £12 per tonne of carbon dioxide, before being subject to auction from 2013.
When the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, met Streatham residents at Lambeth Town Hall in December, he asserted the government’s commitment to the targets set in the Climate Change Bill. By incentivizing reduced energy consumption, penalizing organizations who do not reduce their emissions, and by focussing on the 5000 organizations who are the biggest consumers of energy in this country, the CRC is a crucial step towards achieving the pledged 60% emissions reduction by 2050.
