London - The British government will miss its self-imposed targets on cutting carbon dioxide emissions and promoting the use of renewable forms of energy, scientists warned in a report on Thursday.
"The projected fall in carbon emissions over 2005-10 will not be enough to achieve the government's 20 percent domestic carbon-reduction goal," wrote the researchers from economic analysis group Cambridge Econometrics.
But they said Britain should "comfortably" meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce CO2 emissions - considered a contributor to global warming - by 12,75 percent on 1990 levels by 2010.
In the longer term, the report warned of an "uphill struggle" to reduce emissions by between 26 percent and 32 percent by 2020, as proposed in the government's draft climate change bill.
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Britain's carbon emissions have not fallen since 2002, but the researchers predicted an average reduction of 1,75 percent a year between 2005 and 2010.
Meanwhile, the report also predicted the government would miss "by wide margins" its target for ten percent of Britain's energy to come from renewable sources by 2010, saying it was only on course for five percent.
But the government would "nearly meet" its target for 20 percent by 2020, it said, predicting that 19 percent of Britain's energy would come from renewable sources by then.
A spokesperson for the environment ministry rejected the analysis, saying it did not take into account the "ambitious measures" already put into place.
"The UK's got a good record on tackling climate change and is already on target to meet and exceed its greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol," he said.
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