To help it do so, it is just about to launch an internal carbon-emissions trading scheme.
Peers also heard questions on Rwanda, recognising Palestine as a sovereign state, and the EU emissions trading scheme.
The European Union's plans to introduce the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) have been met with a lot of opposition.
Some reports say the prime minister will push for the aviation industry to be brought within the EU's emissions trading scheme.
BBC: NEWS | UK | Politics | Blair 'shocked' by climate change
The EU Emissions Trading Scheme ( ETS) has been seen as the world's best attempt to cut carbon by means of cap and trade.
BBC: Green energy on the back foot after carbon trading blow
It is the first such deal since the European Union suspended the inclusion of foreign airlines in its controversial Emissions Trading Scheme.
"A huge slice of the 11.3% reduction was achieved long before the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) got underway, " he told BBC News.
The European Union, with its emissions trading scheme across 27 sovereign nations, has been at the forefront of efforts to curb carbon dioxide emissions.
How heavily do you want to see America involved in an emissions trading scheme globally, or has this become too politically hard for you?
He added that with UK passengers having to pay the new Emissions Trading Scheme tax from January, they will be "taxed on the double".
Instead, ministers want to push for the inclusion of aviation in the second round of the European Emissions Trading Scheme, which starts in 2008.
The EU brought in the Emissions Trading Scheme on 1 January.
Can you tell us, is it your wish that American will have an emissions trading scheme across the nation within the next five years or so?
The European Union argues that one credit must equal one tonne of carbon dioxide for its Emissions Trading Scheme, the largest emissions market, to be effective.
To their credit, ministers have pledged to try to get flying included in the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme, a cap-and-trade arrangement for discouraging reliance on carbon.
Mr Yeo said new rules which required any airline that landed or took off within the EU to take part in its emissions trading scheme gave "cover for change in the coalition's position".
That could be a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system, such as Europe's Emissions-Trading Scheme, which limits how much producers can emit, and lets them buy and sell emissions credits.
California is now talking about setting up a European-style emissions-trading scheme with north-eastern states.
The trigger was Mr Rudd's decision in late April to defer a planned emissions-trading scheme (ETS) until at least 2013.
Three years later, a market-based emissions-trading scheme will replace a fixed tax.
ECONOMIST: The prime minister stakes her future on a divisive scheme
Under the European emissions-trading scheme carbon does have a price in Britain, but it is too low to be effective and is hard to increase.
In July 2012 Australia's 500 biggest polluters will start paying a tax on emissions, ahead of an emissions-trading scheme due to start three years later.
And his most cherished reform, an emissions-trading scheme to tackle climate change, is stuck in the upper house of parliament, where his government lacks a majority.
Japanese firms can use the credits to prepare for their country's own looming emissions-trading scheme, and the Japanese government can use them to meet its Kyoto commitments.
The main cause for the slide seems to be his shelving of plans for an emissions-trading scheme to fight climate change, seen as one of his administration's main goals.
ECONOMIST: A rare rich-world leader for whom a budget brings good news
But you say that even a moderate carbon tax would not make nuclear power competitive, noting that the price of permits in Europe's emissions-trading scheme implies a social cost of carbon dioxide of euro20 per tonne.
Many of his announcements were reheated (such as bringing aviation into Europe's emissions-trading scheme), modest (the climate-change levy, an industrial tax, will rise with inflation) or so speculative as to be irrelevant (a suggestion that the target for carbon cuts might be raised to 80% by 2050 from 60%).
America was heavily involved in the design of the Kyoto protocol, and insisted that it should include the possibility of a market in emissions credits, on the ground that its trading scheme to reduce sulphur-dioxide emissions had been a big success.
And from the corporate sector, seven companies involved in aviation have written to European governments complaining about the recent inclusion of plane emissions in the EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS).
The European Parliament will vote this month on a proposal to cap aircraft emissions and include them in the trading scheme.
应用推荐