An environmental thinktank has said that the government could reduce its £178 billion budget deficit and meet EU targets for carbon emissions reduction, if it ends its tax breaks for the most carbon-intensive industries.The Green Alliance has claimed the UK could recapture £12 billion of public spending over four years through removing concessions and economic support for aviation, oil exploration and transport among other sectors.Spending and tax breaks in these areas are not compatible with the move towards a low-carbon economy, claimed the Green Alliance's latest report Unlocking a Low Carbon Europe.Measures recommended by the organisation include taxing large energy users and ending the zero VAT rate for aviation and shipping. The exclusion of transport from the Emissions Trading Scheme was highlighted as "particularly worrying" by the report's authors, who noted that it is the only sector in which emissions have increased between 1990 and 2007. Ninety percent of the sector's greenhouse gas emissions are from road transport.Overall, 12 percent of EU funds subsidise motorway and other road investments budget allocations which are "more likely to intensify climate change and lock countries into carbon intensive paths of development".http://tinyurl.com/y9dnjmz
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