On 29th March, the government released their latest statistics on carbon emissions, which showed that greenhouse gas emissions have fallen 43 per cent since 1990. However, while this figure sounds impressive, reports indicate that the UK is not currently on track to meet its carbon budgets for the late 2020s.

When addressing these findings, Claire Perry, the minister for climate change said “we must not take our foot off the pedal” and added that the government was ‘committed to fundamentally transforming the UK economy to a low carbon economy’. She said she was confident that “with the help of the Climate Change Act, we will continue to lead the charge towards a low carbon future.”

Omar Rahim, CEO of Energi Mine comments on this below. Energi Mine has analysed the government data, alongside newly released stats on solar panel installations, which show that despite the deficit, government policy has caused a setback. If you would like more details on this / further analysis, graphs etc, please let me know.

Omar Rahim, CEO of Energi Mine, the platform that rewards energy efficient behaviour, commented: “No one will argue with Minister Claire Perry that we should not take our foot off the pedal, but while we are currently meeting our targets, we will see a deficit in our carbon emission goals by the late 2020s. This is not good enough and it is time for a radical rethink to get people to change the way they interact with energy, and the consequential carbon emissions, for the long term.

“Rebate schemes such as the Feed-in tariffs started working, but as the cost of solar panels fell, the government significantly cut the rewards for a relatively cheap way of creating renewable energy. Our own analysis of the data has shown {see below release} that the solar panel market is stagnating as a consequence. Equally, smart meters have gone a long way to change our relationship with energy, but this does not go far enough. We believe that long term habitual change can only take hold if people are financially incentivised and rewarded. Much like the introduction of charges for plastic bags, financial rewards need to be introduced for energy saving behaviour to really take hold and deliver the necessary results.”

Omar Rahim, CEO Omar has spent the last 12 years in the energy trading space throughout Europe for some of the largest energy companies in the world including Engie and Vattenfall. Having traded energy in both European and US markets, he then went on to found two companies in the energy trading space; successfully exiting them before co-founding Energi Mine in the UK. Having managed an energy trading portfolio of more than €3 billion, he co-founded Energi Mine after finding the energy markets were riddled with inefficiencies. Omar is a regular commentator in the media on topics surrounding the energy markets.