UK carbon cuts do not go far enough, scientist says

The government's environmental policy has been described as 'dangerously optimistic' by a UK climate scientist.

According to Professor Kevin Anderson, the director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, reducing carbon emission levels to 64 percent of those seen in 1990 over the next 11 years would mean there is just a 50-50 chance that global temperature rises will be limited to 2 degrees C.

As a result, he has pressed the case for the government to set a precedent at the forthcoming Copenhagen conference on climate change and adopt a 40 percent target.

In an interview with the Guardian, Mr Anderson suggested that one way to achieve more ambitious carbon cuts - through initiatives such as investment in renewable energy technology and low-carbon transport - would be to give the Department of Energy and Climate Change more power.

He told the news provider that the two government departments most heavily implicated in the country's climate change strategy were like "small dogs yapping at the heels" of more powerful departments.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference is due to be held in Copenhagen from December 7th to December 18th, with the delivery of a successor to the Kyoto protocol high on the list of priorities.