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Department for
Business, Energy
& lndustrial Strategy

Department
for Education

Chris Skidmore MP
Minister of State for Universities, Science,
Research and lnnovation.

Lord Deben
Committee on Climate Change
7 Holbein Place
London
SWlW 8NR

1 Victoria Street
London

SWlH OET
+44 (O) 20 721 5 5000
wwv\r.education.qov. uUhelo/contactus

enquiries@beis.qov.uk
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6 June 2019

I am writing to follow up on our recent discussions on how we best deal with changes to the way
we measure greenhouse gas emissions in relation to the Climate Change Act.

As you know, the UK has a world-leading record in tackling climate change. We are rightly
proud of our performance against our carbon targets, having overperformed for the second
time, leading us to cut our emissions faster than any G7 country. We have no intention of using
this overperformance to meet Carbon Budget 3, which we are on track to exceed too.

I would be grateful if the Committee would advise on how technical changes to the baseline
used to measure our emissions, as new information comes to light, should be handled. We want
to avoid a paradoxical situation in which changes to the baseline, after we have given up the
surplus created by this overachievement, could erroneously indicate that we were in noncompliance. Pending this advice, the Government will carry over a small proportion of the
surplus (88 megatonnes of CO2 - out of the surplus of 384 megatonnes - which is around 3Yo
of Carbon Budget 2) whilst this work is completed. This will be released once it is clear that it
will not be needed to address any technical changes in the baseline.
I look forward to receiving the Commiilee's advice on this issue.

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CHRIS SKIDMORE MP