AUTONEWS

UK fails to reduce CO2 emissions

The UK appears to be making a name for itself when it comes to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions limits for new cars. Two years ago, with the Conservatives in government, the British decided to align themselves with the European Union (EU) and schedule the “death” of all cars that consumed gasoline or diesel in 2035, but the Labor Party, which replaced them in power, chose for being too optimistic and they moved forward with the end of models that burn petroleum-derived fuels by 2030. Now they are in talks with car manufacturers to prepare for the return of the limit in 2035.

This latest reversal is due to the negative reaction of manufacturers who still produce in the United Kingdom, in relation to the bringing forward of the ban on selling models with combustion engines to 2030. The most blatant example came from Stellantis, the group that owns Vauxhall and has a factory in Luton, in the south of England, which announced its closure and the dismissal of 1100 employees, in response to what it considers to be excessive voluntarism on the part of the Government, given the reality of the market.

The UK car industry, which was once substantially stronger, continues to provide many jobs and create much wealth, so regardless of the colour of the Government, everyone will do what they can to keep the industry they still have going and which has produced over 1 million vehicles in 2023, despite the fact that they continue to wink at the Chinese to set up their factories in Europe there. And this transition to electric cars could even represent a unique opportunity for the British to regain the dimension as a building country that they had in the past.

The upcoming talks between manufacturers and representatives of the British Government will serve for the former to explain to the latter that the timetable for implementing the European Union's CO2 emissions standards is already tight and difficult to achieve. It does not make much sense to further force manufacturers to adapt to the needs of a market that consumed around 1.9 million units in 2023, when the EU absorbs 10.5 million as a whole.

The fact that the United Kingdom currently has around 45,000 charging points, between direct current and alternating current, but needs to offer between 280,000 and 450,000 in 2030, which means increasing the number of chargers a rate of more than 50,000/year. Also up for discussion is the Government's desire to rapidly accelerate sales of electric vehicles, which already accounted for 22% of new cars sold in the UK in 2024, in line with the 22.7% EU average. 

The goal is to reach 28% by 2025, but this implies selling an additional 114,000 battery-powered vehicles, a jump of over 30% compared to the 371,000 electric vehicles that the British estimate they will have sold in 2024. And, to encourage the achievement of this objective , the British have set a fine of £15,000 (€18,100) per vehicle sold to defaulting manufacturers, which could result in millions in penalties.

The UK’s electricity was the cleanest ever in 2024, new Carbon Brief analysis shows, with carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per unit falling by more than two-thirds in a decade.

This is because the UK has phased out coal and is now getting less than half as much electricity from burning fossil fuels as a decade ago, while renewable generation has more than doubled.

In total, fossil fuels made up just 29% of the UK’s electricity in 2024 – the lowest level on record – while renewables reached a record-high 45% and nuclear was another 13%.

As a result, each unit of electricity generated in 2024 was associated with an average of just 124g of CO2, compared with a “carbon intensity” of 419gCO2 per kilowatt hour (kWh) in 2014.

Other key insights from the data include:

In 2024, the country generated just 91 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity from fossil fuels – mainly gas, as coal was phased out in September – down from 203TWh in 2014 (-55%).

Renewable sources more than doubled from 65TWh in 2014 to 143TWh in 2024 (+122%).

Gas-fired power stations remained the UK’s single-largest source of electricity in 2024, generating some 88TWh (28%), just ahead of wind at 84TWh (26%).

The remaining sources of electricity in 2024 were nuclear (41TWh, 13%), biomass (40TWh, 13%), imports (33TWh, 11%) and solar (14TWh, 4%).

Some 58% of electricity – or 64% excluding imports – came from clean sources, both records, but a long way off the government’s target of at least 95% clean power by 2030.

The emissions associated with UK electricity supplies has fallen from 150m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) in 2014 to below 40MtCO2 in 2024, down 74%.

The reduction in the carbon intensity of electricity means that an electric vehicle (EV) now has lifecycle CO2 savings of 70% over a petrol car, up from only 50% in 2014.

Similarly, a household using a heat pump instead of a gas boiler is now cutting its heat-related CO2 emissions by 84% per year, rather than only 45% in 2014.

While figures from the National Energy System Operator (NESO) show wind having generated more electricity than gas in 2024, these numbers exclude significant amounts of gas generation, particularly from “combined heat and power” units at industrial sites.

When accounting for all plants burning gas for power in the UK, the fuel remained as the single-largest source of electricity in 2024, slightly ahead of wind.

However, increasing wind power capacity as new projects are completed in the coming months – and below-average wind speeds in 2024 – mean wind is likely to generate more electricity than gas in 2025.

Carbon Brief has published an annual analysis of the UK’s electricity generation in 2023, 2021, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016.

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