With the prime minister and business secretary reportedly considering developing another green homes retrofit programme, it is vital that they build on the lessons of previous flagship home energy efficiency policies, or risk repeating the same mistakes.
Read more
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.
Read moreThis 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.
Read more
This post is by Colin Hines, convenor of the Green New Deal group
Linking tackling of the coronavirus crisis with solving the climate crisis is now being called for on all sides, from the UK’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to the IMF. Read more
This 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
This 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
This 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
This 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
This post is by Colin Hines, convenor of the UK Green New Deal Group.
The environment movement needs to learn two lessons from the election result. First, that despite all the coverage of climate events and growing public clamour for something drastic to be done about it, 12 December was definitely not a ‘climate election’. Read more
This post is by Andrew Warren, chair of the British Energy Efficiency Federation.
UK electricity consumption is 18 per cent lower than it was 15 years ago. Some two thirds of that drop is due to the implementation of European Union policy on energy using products. Read more
