The UK’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions fell by 5.4% in 2023 but persistently high transport emissions are ringing alarm bells.

Less than a third of Brits know that transport is the UK’s number one source of emissions

The provisional estimates from the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero show total UK territorial greenhouse gas emissions were 384.2 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) last year. That’s 5.4% lower than 2022 and down 52.7% since 1990, following reduced gas use in UK electricity generation, and higher energy and other prices that reduced demand for heating.

Electricity supply saw the largest reduction in emissions in 2023 of any sector, down 20% in the last year and 78% since 1990. The largest driver of the long-term fall in UK emissions has been the decrease of emissions from electricity supply, due to the shift in fuel use within power stations away from using coal for electricity generation towards gas and renewables

While the news is broadly good, domestic transport barely fell (1%) and is down only 14% since 1990. Thom Groot, CEO of The Electric Car Scheme, is calling on the government to do more to not only encourage EV uptake but improve public education.

Groot said: “These statistics highlight the significant drag transport is having on the UK’s journey to net zero. If we are to reach our goals there needs to be a more concerted effort from government policy to push EV uptake and cut emissions. It also highlights the misconceptions that exist currently, with less than a third of Brits knowing that transport is the UK’s number one source of emissions, many of them place industrial processes as a higher priority despite it producing just 3% of the UK’s emissions.

“The Government is utterly failing to meet the targets they have set for themselves. The OBR has already significantly revised down its prediction from March 2023 in November, but we’re now behind even that.

“In 2024 to date, electric car uptake is 22 percentage points behind the March 2023 forecast, at less than 15% of total new car sales – woefully short of what is needed to reach 100% by 2035.”