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Combating climate change starts at home.
June 28, 2007 9:08 PM
Combating climate change starts at home. Literally at home, as 27% of the
UK's carbon emissions are produced by the electricity, gas and oil used to
heat, light and power our homes.
This is twice as much carbon dioxide as our cars produce. Cutting green house gases produced by our homes by 60%
(the Government's target by 2050) would cut carbon dioxide emissions more
than taking all the UK's cars off the road.
But that target takes real political will to achieve, not least because three
quarters of the homes standing in 2050 have already been built, and have
people living in them. Although the Government talks of catching up
eventually with the standards our European counterparts are already using to
build new homes, they have no effective plans to reduce emissions from
existing homes.
The package of proposals we are putting forward would reduce carbon
emissions from British homes by more than 60% by 2050. It would ensure
new homes are built to a standard matching that on the continent and
Canada, not in ten years time, but from 2011, and it would initiate a
comprehensive programme of refurbishing existing homes.
The benefits will be threefold. Britain will substantially reduce its carbon
emissions, meeting its international obligations, and helping to stabilise
climate change.
Householders will have lower energy bills, and higher comfort
levels - finally removing the unacceptable blots of fuel poverty and so-called
"excess winter deaths". England will also reduce its dependence in the long
term on fuel from abroad.
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