The Carbon Plan

Just a quick note... I've added some facts to the previous post about the TGD so take another look!

I'm going to take another different angle here and look at the Government's Carbon Plan which was set out in December 2011 by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC). It is designed to cut 1990 emission levels by 80% by 2050.
The plan sets out how the UK will achieve its decarbonisation plan within the framework for energy policy, to make a future with maintained energy security and minimising costs to consumers, especially those in poorer households. The government has targeted 5 areas to meet these targets:

1. Low carbon buildings (see earlier post "Design for Change")
2. Low Carbon Transport
3. Low Carbon Industry
4. Low Carbon Power Generation
5. Low Carbon greenhouse gas agriculture and forestry

The Carbon Plan is intended to promote innovation within various sectors of the UK economy, with incentives for homeowners to invest in domestic low carbon technologies, such as biomass boilers (see earlier posts about biomass), heat pumps and combined heat and power. If these technologies are taken up by households then companies will have a greater incentive to invest research, development and marketing of these domestic based low carbon technologies.
In the transport industry, companies are being incentivised to research, produce and market biofuel combustion engines along with low emission combustion engines. In industry and power generation carbon capture and storage (CCS) is being pushed heavily by the government, with trials currently taking place at Ferrybridge and Renfrew.
I've got all of this information from the DECC's website and associated documents.
I searched high and low for reports on the success of the Carbon Plan but to no avail as of yet, but I will keep searching. It is a relatively new scheme and it's successes might take a few more years to be published.
It is however encouraging to see the Government taking proactive steps towards a decarbonised future.