UK Ministers Now Accused of Misleading the Public Over Emissions Statistics

It now seems that Ministers in the UK have been accused of over exaggerating Britain’s success in fighting climate change. The Government’s statistic watchdog said that some of these figures on carbon dioxide emissions may be misleading to the public.

The chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Michael Scholar, said that the presentation of the data by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, also known as the DECC, is unsatisfactory. Michael Scholar went on to write a letter to Tim Yeo, who is the chairman of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, and said a statistical bulletin that was released in February fell rather short of the government’s code of practice.

This now raises some very serious concerns about the claim that CO2 emissions has fallen by 12.8 percent compared to the levels that were seen in 1990. Apparently a third of that fall is made up of carbon credits purchased by polluters in an EU trading scheme and does not represent actual cuts in UK emissions. Without these credits, the fall is much more modest at only 8.5 percent.

Sir Michael Scholar went on to say that these figures are more than likely going to be used by non-expert observers, the public, to judge the progress in reducing CO2 emissions in the UK. Thus, it seems like a clear case of misleading the public. The UK Statistical Authority now has no choice but to view the quotes figures, particularly the percentage change, as being completely unsatisfactory.

It would seem that Tim Yeo agrees with Sir Michael Scholar on the matter. In fact, Yeo said that the figures are not being used in a straightforward way and has now called on ministers to put everything right as soon as possible.