The Carbon Budget Order 2026

Explanatory note

Reproduced verbatim from the instrument as published on legislation.gov.uk (Crown Copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0). The note is prepared by the responsible government department and is not part of the instrument itself.

This Order sets the carbon budget for the 2038-2042 budgetary period at 535 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Carbon budgets set a cap on the maximum level of the net UK carbon account for each five-year budgetary period. The net UK carbon account is defined in section 27 of the Climate Change Act 2008.

A full impact assessment of the effect that this instrument will have on the costs of business and the voluntary sector is available from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero at 3-8 Whitehall Place, London, SW1A 2AW and is published with its Explanatory Memorandum alongside this instrument on www.legislation.gov.uk .