MPs in the Public Accounts Committee have criticised the poor quality of emissions measuring and reporting across central government.
The report published by the committee just before the start of COP27 stressed that “inconsistent” reporting of data across the public sector made it difficult to compare performance between periods and departments and could undermine the legally binding target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
“Leadership and oversight of emissions measurement and reporting in central government is fragmented and ineffective,” it said.
At the moment, three different departments – the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis), the Treasury, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – share the responsibility of overseeing carbon emissions reporting.
As a result, the guidance they issued to other departments was “too vague” and compliance was “low”, the committee said. According to the...