Figures released by Defra on 31 January 2008 show that the UK's carbon dioxide emissions "stayed virtually the same" in 2006, dropping by just 0.1% to 554.5 million tonnes CO2. Overall greenhouse gases fell by 0.5% on the year before.
Emissions from the domestic sector fell by 5% while those from business dropped 1.5%. But CO2 emission from the energy supply sector rose 1.5% and from transport by 1.3%. Between 1990 and 2006, emissions from aviation have more than doubled. While emissions from domestic flights fell by 2.8%, this was cancelled out by a 1.5% rise in emissions from international aviation, due to more flights, but these are excluded from the figures.
Friends of the Earth said the figures would be 6% higher if emissions from international flights were included, which it estimates at 35 million tonnes in 2006. It urged the government to include these emissions in the Climate Change Bill (passing through the House of Lords in early 2008).
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