I welcome the agreement on the fourth carbon budget (Editorial, 18 May) and the efforts of the energy and climate secretary to secure it. Unfortunately, cabinet infighting has delivered a flawed deal, with the government failing to heed advice from the Committee on Climate Change on three key points. First, it is refusing to toughen up the existing targets for 2013-23, making the fourth budget harder and more costly to achieve and stunting ambition in the here and now. Second, the concessionary review clause slipped in by the Treasury will allow the government to backtrack on the budget in 2014, depending on progress elsewhere in the EU, reducing long-term certainty on emissions cuts and potentially harming the investor confidence in green technologies which the Climate Change Act is designed to build.
And on the fundamental issue of how we meet the targets, the government has shunned the CCC's recommendation that the budget should be met through domestic action alone. Exporting carbon pollution is not the same as reducing it. Allowing trading mechanisms such as offsetting is, in effect, outsourcing our responsibilities to other countries – and weakening the drive to build green industries here. With the right political leadership and commitment to ambitious reforms, the green jobs of the future can become a reality now.
Green, Brighton Pavilion
• Chris Huhne deserves congratulations for winning the cabinet battle over climate targets, as does the prime minister for backing him. The decision will give a boost to the coalition's tattered green credentials. David Cameron must now get on with the urgent task of fast tracking the policies that will ensure that the UK's bold climate targets are met. This means strengthening the energy bill to slash energy waste in our homes and communities, putting electricity decarbonisation by 2030 at the heart of electricity market reform and ensuring that the fight against climate change is central to UK transport policy.
Andy Atkins
Executive director, Friends of the Earth
• As the biggest union in the UK steel industry, we represent many of the people you refer to as having "dirty jobs". This is simplistic. Thousands of them are already playing their part in the green economy, producing steel for renewable energy infrastructure, greener cars and low-carbon construction. The industry has already significantly reduced its carbon footprint and by 2023 technological developments should allow it to play its part in meeting the UK's targets, while creating jobs. Nevertheless, it is vital that climate change policies do not jeopardise the industry and that a policy is implemented to sustain and develop energy-intensive industries.
Michael Leahy
General secretary, Community trade union
Your leader has a lively awareness of the immediate economic problems, but excludes any realistic assessment of the true scale of the physical-world problem we are being forced to confront. Those at the sharp end of climate change research – like Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre – say that we need something more like 10% cuts a year. Dr James Hansen, who heads the Nasa climate change research effort says that two degrees of warming is not a safe target, but a recipe for disaster. Looked at in that light, even the most ambitious action to address the climate threat that has so far been proposed, at either the national or international level, cannot be regarded as really serious.
Phil Thornhill
National coordinator, Campaign against Climate Change