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The party claim that the measures, which will be debated at the party's conference in Brighton next month, strengthen the Liberal Democrats' position as the only major political party with specific proposals designed to face the challenge of climate change.

Proposals in the paper 'Zero Carbon Britain - Taking a Global Lead' include:

• Major improvements to the rail network and the construction of a high speed rail line, paid for by tolling lorries on motorways
• A commitment to 100 per cent carbon free, non-nuclear electricity by 2050
• The use of green taxes to make the polluter pay, using the revenue to cut income tax
• Introducing 'green mortgages' to enable people to make their homes more energy efficient

Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat Leader, said:
"With these policies the Liberal Democrats have become the first major British party to map out the route to a carbon neutral Britain. And the first to plan the way towards a cleaner global environment too.

"Pollution doesn't respect national boundaries. Climate change is a global problem that requires an international solution. Britain should not be a bit player in finding that solution; we should be leading the pack. Under our proposals, the United Kingdom would set the green standard for others to reach."

Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment Secretary, said:
"This ambitious objective for zero-carbon Britain would put us in the global lead in tackling climate chaos along with Sweden, Norway and New Zealand.

"Just as crucially, we have set out plans that are the first attempt of any British political party to tackle carbon emissions from every part of the economy: transport, energy, housing, offices and factories. The time for talk has passed; we need action.

"The Labour Government is going backwards with Gordon Brown's demotion of the Cabinet committee on the environment, cuts in green taxes and rising carbon emissions. The Tories have so far only proposed airport expansion and road building that would make the problem worse.

"These plans are the first and only realistic route march for change."

Responding to the announcement, Tony Juniper, Friends of the Earth director, said:
"We are delighted that the Liberal Democrats have come up with a range of progressive policies aimed at making the UK carbon neutral by 2050. The leadership must now increase pressure on the other main parties to follow suit.

"New policies are urgently needed to cut UK emissions, which have risen under Labour despite promises of substantial cuts. This must include strengthening Government proposals for a new climate change law. Politicians from all parties must insist that it includes international aviation and leads to a cut in UK carbon dioxide emissions of at least three per cent every year."

The details
The Liberal's paper targets six groups of carbon emitters: Energy Suppliers; Business, Industry, and Public Sector; Road Transport; Households; Agriculture; All other Transport (focused on flight).

For each group, they set out their short-term (2011-2020) long-term (2050) strategies.  See this table for a summary.

Energy
Rather than the 20% renewable target that Labour have set, and are in danger of missing, the Liberal Democrats plan to achieve 30%.  One reason why renewable energy has not taken off in a big way in the UK is because the costs are too high and the time to recoup the cost in savings is too long.

The LibDems want to implement a guaranteed 'feed-in' tariff similar to one implemented in Germany.  In the German model, anyone (an individual or an organisation) can become a power generator and sell excess electricity back to the grid at a guaranteed rate. This has led to a massive take-up of microgeneration and a much shorter pay-back period.

Liberal Democrats oppose the Labour Government's plan to build a new generation of nuclear power plants.  They say:
"Building a new round of nuclear power plants will lock this country into centralised and inflexible electricity generation, crowd out investment in renewable energy, microgeneration and CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) and undermine our efforts to promote energy saving."

Road Transport
The LibDems want to introduce more prohibitive car taxes up to £2000 for the highest emitting vehicles, with the ultimate goal that all new cars from 2040 should be zero-emitting.

In the short-term, the LibDems say they would press for the introduction of "mandatory requirements to limit average emissions from all new cars placed on the EU single market to 120g CO2/km by 2015 and 95g CO2/km by 2020 through technical improvements alone."

They also want to 'promote' the take-up of alternative freight methods by charging "road freight on a pay per mile basis, varying according to emissions".  The money that they would generate through this charging mechanism would go to create a 'Future Transport Fund' which would be used to fund alternative transportation schemes.

The LibDems also intend to "introduce a presumption against the building of new roads where there is no overall environmental and social benefit and shift the balance of spending from roads to rail and other public transport."

Air Transport
The LibDems' proposals for all air transport include charging a 'Climate Change Levy' for domestic flights and charging VAT on tickets.  Something that will please the recent airport protesters, the LibDems also intend to limit runway capacity to today's levels.

Housing
Acknowledging that housing accounts for nearly one third of all emissions in the UK, the LibDems want to bring forward the requirement on making new builds Zero Carbon by 2011.  Again, they point to Germany saying "all new homes have to be built to the GreenHouse standard no later than 2011. GreenHouse standards for new homes are modelled on Germany’s tried and tested PassivHaus standards. They are the best known standard for building homes that require no fossil fuels for their space heating, and are thus zero carbon except for water heating and appliance use."

For the existing housing stock, the LibDems want to introduce a loan scheme called 'Green Mortgages'.  These loans would buy a 'WarmHome' package which will improve the energy efficiency of a home.  The loan would then be paid back through energy bills.  The LibDems calculate that since the WarmHome package would decrease the size of a household's energy bill, that the difference can be used to pay back the loan.

Carbon Offsetting
The LibDem proposals also outline the introduction of a personal carbon allowances scheme.  The scheme would involve using a national emissions cap and allocating emissions rights, as carbon credits, across the population as a whole. People would give up their credits when they bought electricity, gas or transport fuel. The allowances would be tradable: people who wanted to emit more could buy credits from those who emit less.

They suggest that "such a proposal has a number of advantages. In conjunction with other measures they could guarantee a certain reduction in carbon emissions."  Though they acknowledge that "such a scheme could exacerbate fuel poverty, at least until our proposals for energy efficiency had taken effect."

Tight Deadlines
The plans that the LibDems have proposed bring the current government's timetable forward by a number of years.  Some plans, such as Zero Carbon homes by 2011 would presuppose a general election sooner rather than later, and are sure to cause concern for a number of sectors.  At the same time, these plans are sure to delight many more groups.  It remains to be seen whether the electoral public is ready to commit and give a mandate for these proposals.

Summary