Help increase the government’s ambition on home heating

In efforts to reduce the UK’s impact on climate change, home heating can not be ignored. An outdated reliance on gas boilers, coupled with the UK’s old and draughty housing stock, has meant that heating homes accounts for a chunky 14% of the UK’s total carbon emissions (for more information, see this article by Possible’s head of campaigns). 

On 19th October this year, the UK government published the new Heat and Buildings strategy which is essentially a roadmap to clean up home heating. 

Sounds good right? Unfortunately not.

Although there are some welcome parts to the plan, such as phasing out the installation of new gas boilers by 2035, and introducing new ways to get the industry to drive down costs, there are some glaring omissions. Even if the government manages to stay on track with their plan - the carbon-cutting results will fall short. 

For example, the first step in any strategy like this should be to make sure all our homes are as energy efficient as possible - plugging up the leaks and improving insulation. And with the current energy crisis, it’s more important than ever that households are supported to reduce their need for energy to keep costs down. Yet the strategy and recent Spending Review provided no support for energy efficiency measures for the majority of owner-occupiers, who make up two thirds of all the households in the UK, and live in the homes that emit the most carbon.

The other thing missing from the plan is quite simply - ambition. The funding announced for improving how we heat our homes is a fraction of what’s needed to get us on track to tackling climate change. It’s £2 billion short of what the government promised at the last election, and nearly £10 billion short of what’s really needed.* What’s been announced aims to keep things ticking along for the next few years at our current (inadequate) installation rate for clean heat pumps. We need this government to dial their ambition if they’re going to reach the Climate Change Committee’s recommendations of installing a million heat pumps a year by the end of the decade.

This seems bad. What can I do about it? 

Without serious government investment clean heating will only be available for those who can fork out the upfront costs. So we’re asking the government to re-visit their heat and buildings strategy and up their ambition so that we see bigger impact - and faster. 

As your elected representative in Parliament, your MP needs to know what you think - he or she can speak up on your behalf, and show the government that the public want to see greater ambition on home heating. 

Will you tell your MP that you want to see action on home heating that the climate crisis demands?  We’ve created a web tool and draft email so it’s quick and easy to let your MP know you want bolder action on clean heat. That being said, we know that MPs give more time to emails written by constituents themselves. So if you can, please take a minute to personalise the email before sending.

If you have any questions please get in touch by emailing us at hello@wearepossible.org.  

*Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group (2021). Still waiting for the green light. EEIG.