Recommendation 23

In its new Strategy, government recognises the importance of addressing the risk of carbon leakage so that its net zero interventions do not lead to increased emissions elsewhere, and to ensure that UK industry has confidence to decarbonise.82 The Department sought to assure us that it has not found serious problems with carbon leakage, and that Defra report the UK’s ‘carbon footprint’, which includes consumption emissions relating to imports from China, the EU or the rest of the world. The Department told us that Defra’s data show a declining trajectory.83 However, it should be noted that Defra classes these as experimental statistics because of inherent uncertainties in the estimation of emissions.84