Tag Archives: Energy efficiency

The UK’s new ‘right to repair’ is not a right to repair

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This post is by Libby Peake, head of resource policy at Green Alliance, and Ugo Vallauri of The Restart Project.

We’ve all experienced the frustration of a gadget or appliance failing before it should and finding it too hard, too expensive or just too much hassle to get it fixed. In fact, it seems to be happening more and more often, and the government has noticed, saying it wants to address wasteful and aggravating premature obsolescence.

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Will the government’s updated fuel poverty strategy have better results?

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Around ten per cent of England’s population is estimated to be living in fuel poverty. This is where households on low incomes live in homes with poor energy efficiency and struggle to pay their energy bills. The government has just published an updated fuel poverty strategy, building on its 2015 predecessor which set out how it aims to support as many homes as is “reasonably practicable” to achieve a minimum energy efficiency rating of Band C (EPC C) by 2030.

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What has gone wrong with the Green Homes Grant?

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This post is by Jan Rosenow and Louise Sunderland of the Regulatory Assistance Project.

The Green Homes Grant risks becoming the second government home energy efficiency scheme in a decade designed to fail.

The last decade wasn’t a good one for energy efficiency policy in the UK. We all remember the Green Deal, the coalition government’s flagship energy efficiency policy that was supposed to support 14 million home retrofits by 2020. It was terminated in 2015, after two years, having achieved fewer than 20,000 home retrofits. If anything, it was an example of how not to design an energy efficiency policy. The failure of the Green Deal left a gaping hole that was never plugged.

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Why energy efficient buildings should be a top climate policy priority

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blog-builings-smallThis blog is by Dr Peter Mallaburn, a researcher from the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions. It is part of a series reflecting on the need for energy demand reduction in the UK.

We spend most of our lives inside buildings, and the energy we use to light, heat and cool them is responsible for a third of UK CO2 emissions. So, now we need to take more action to tackle climate change and bring down emissions, and buildings are an important target for government policy. Read more

The PM’s “technological optimism” won’t be enough for a low carbon revolution

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intext-blog-citymetric-london-business-caterinaThis post was first published in CityMetric.

Launching the countdown to the COP26 climate talks last week, the prime minister was right to say climate action presents a huge industrial opportunity, one that can drive “our national agenda of uniting and levelling up our country”. The UK’s success in renewable energy is a clear example of what real policy ambition can achieve. Read more

Why isn’t cutting demand at the heart of our energy policy?

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intext-blogThis post is by Nick Eyre, director of the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS).

The government frequently boasts that the UK has broken the link between carbon emissions and economic growth. Since 1970, the economy has trebled in size, whilst emissions have fallen by about a third. Read more

UK energy transition in 2020 – what to expect?

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intext-energy-transition-windThis will be a big year for climate change in the UK and around the world. The UK is set to host the all-important UN conference on climate change, COP26 in Glasgow, where countries are expected to put forward enhanced ambition on mitigation and financing to deal with the crisis. It is a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase our domestic and international leadership on the issue. Read more

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