Corporate Services, Climate Change and Scrutiny Management Committee

14 April 2025

Annex A: Summary of DRAFT York and North Yorkshire Carbon Abatement Pathways (CAP) Study Refresh 2025

Key Findings

· Emissions in York and North Yorkshire are lower now than in 2005; transport, buildings and agriculture remain key sectors for achieving decarbonisation of the local economy.

· Progress to date is reflected in emissions declines as well as progress towards the ambitious targets set out in the Routemap but is still not sufficient to meet the ambition set out in the Routemap published in 2022.

· All the pathways explored show a very ambitious decarbonisation pathway, with a 15-year window of opportunity to achieve negative carbon emissions across the region. All pathways require a paradigm shift that will need to start today.

· The ‘York & North Yorkshire Leading the Way’ scenario (labelled ‘Max Ambition Scenario’ in the 2021 study) allows for regional leadership but faces challenges around cost and rapid behavioural change. It requires the region to maximise opportunities to achieve negative carbon emissions by 2040, noting that without the use of carbon removals it is not possible to achieve the target.

· The challenges associated with the most ambitious scenario should be used to reflect on the appetite to continue pursuing this target: during stakeholder engagement, confidence in the ability and likelihood of achieving this ambition was not always shared.

Proposed Scenario Pathways

A narrative description of each proposed scenario is provided below. Each describes the projected changes in greenhouse gas emissions in the study region. Table 1 summarises the key Scale of Ambition Targets underpinning the scenarios.

▪ York and North Yorkshire Leading the Way Scenario:

Based on the previously adopted maximum ambition scenario included in the CAP Study (2021) and the Routemap to Carbon Negative emissions published in 2022, this pathway implies a significant electrification of heating, transport and industry, as well as a significant increase in low-carbon power generation and high rates of forest planting.

▪ Balanced Scenario (Sixth Carbon Budget):

The CCC plausible scenario based on their assessment. The Balanced Pathway navigates through the range of possibilities across technology and society the CCC identified. All new cars, vans and boilers and most investments will be net-zero from 2030 or soon after. It makes moderate assumptions regarding the scale of behavioural change and innovation.

▪ Policy-driven Scenario (Sixth Carbon Budget):

This pathway shows a likely scenario where decarbonisation is achieved through a combination of policy and behavioural change. Based on the CCC's widespread engagement, it includes high levels of social and behavioural change resulting from policies. People and businesses are willing to make more changes to their behaviour. This reduces demand for the most carbon-intensive activities and increases the uptake of some climate change mitigation measures.

▪ Technology-driven Scenario (Sixth Carbon Budget):

Assumes considerable success in both innovation and social and behavioural change. The widespread innovation scenario goes beyond the balanced scenario to achieve net zero by 2050. Success in reducing the costs of low-carbon technologies enables more widespread electrification, a more resource- and energy-efficient economy and more cost-effective technologies to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. It assumes minor social and behavioural changes compared to the policy-driven scenario.

The following section sets out the measures that would be required to

achieve these scenarios.

Table 1: Summary of Scale of Ambition Targets underpinning modelling of scenarios pathways

Carbon Budgets

In 2019 the Tyndall Centre completed an analysis for West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) to make its ‘fair’ contribution towards the Paris Climate Change Agreement. The calculations specific to North Yorkshire and City of York were not available to this study. However, the high-level messaging included in the 2019 report has been reviewed: advice included to “reach zero carbon no later than 2041” and “Initiate an immediate programme of CO₂ mitigation to deliver annual cuts in emissions averaging 13% to 15% - depending on allocation method - to deliver a Paris aligned carbon budget”.

The Tyndall Centre analysis estimated carbon budgets apply to CO₂ emissions from the energy system only. In addition to setting global average temperature targets, they have considered the foundational principals of common but differentiated responsibility.

It is recommended that YNYCA reflect on the carbon budgets set by Tyndall Centre and the updated analysis completed in this report by using The Global Carbon Budget32 developed by the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute.

Key messages from their Global Carbon Budget 2024 include:

· Globally, no clear signs of peak in global fossil CO₂ emissions yet. Total CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel use and land use change combined have plateaued in the past decade, but not declined. The growth in fossil fuel CO₂ emissions is compensated by the decline in land use change CO₂ emissions. There is still no sign of the rapid and deep decrease in total CO₂ emissions that is needed to tackle climate change.

· Net CO₂ emissions from land use change remain high, but they have decreased since their peak in the late-1990s, in particular in the past decade.

An initial estimate comparing the potential number of years left in current carbon emissions (CO₂) in 2022 and the Carbon Budget 2023 to ensure alignment between current estimated carbon emissions and global carbon budget has been undertaken. This is provided as a guide to understanding the impact of change rather than a formal recommendation of what future regional carbon budgets might look like. It has, therefore, only considered population figures in the region to estimate the regional budget on a per capita basis.

Table 2: Estimated regional carbon budget for a range of warming scenarios