We all want to return to warm places, but British houses are cold, ventilated, and powered by fossil fuels.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) One week later Published its ‘“Code Red” report on the climate crisis. In the case of extreme weather events around the world, our own Ministry of Finance is working It is said that The policies needed to stop us from burning fossil fuels. Just over two months before the United Kingdom hosted the United Nations Climate Summit, the price of Britain’s becoming a net-zero-emission economy was heating up between Boris Johnson and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
One flash point is how we decarbonize our houses, the Ministry of Finance prevents the government Low-carbon heating strategy, Cancel the green home subsidy Just six months later, Postpone elimination New gas boiler.Housing make up 15% of UK greenhouse gas emissions From burning oil and natural gas to get hot water, cooking and heating and other things-and now, we have no real plan to prevent our families from contributing to the climate crisis.
We all want to return to a warm and comfortable place, but most of our houses in the UK are leaky and ventilated.We have Old house stock More than every EU country, our home leaks heat Three times faster. This means that we spend more money and energy to keep our home warm. For those who can afford it, this leads to higher carbon emissions from burning fuel.for 3.18 million British households (13.4%) No, living in a cold home may be Put their health at risk.
Upgrading our leaky house will help deal with the climate crisis and Ensure that everyone can live in a warm home. There are two aspects to this. First, we can make houses more energy-efficient through measures such as better heat insulation and double or triple glazing. Second, we can replace fossil fuel heating such as gas boilers with clean alternatives such as heat pumps.
“Upgrading our leaky house will help deal with the climate crisis and ensure that everyone can live in a warm home. “
Renovating houses in this way is challenging: houses vary in size, shape, occupants, and owners across the country. The government has made some attempts to solve our poorly ventilated houses, but for 10 years, we have been stopping and starting policies, but there is no proper funding to support them. The most recent one is the Abandoned Green House Grant, which aims to provide 600,000 homeowners with vouchers to pay for energy-efficient house improvements.More than 120,000 people applied, but in the end the program only paid 2,900 vouchers. Its failure Attributed to Chaotic management, long-term delays for customers and installers, and difficult certification processes for small retrofit companies.
Although the Ministry of Finance Concerns about cost Decarbonizing our housing is unnecessary, The amount of money spent by homeowners to upgrade their houses is not trivial. Heat pump may cost Between 6,000 and 10,000 pounds, old houses require a lot of insulation work before installation.
But these challenges do not mean that we should give up upgrading British houses-it means that we need a different approach. Our research found A national house renovation plan can save households more than 400 pounds per year and reduce household emissions by 21%. and Create 500,000 jobs.
“The collective approach will help everyone-not just those who own their own house and have the ability to upgrade it. “
The current government seems to hope that enough independent families can raise enough funds for large-scale transformation. However, when the government relies on vouchers such as green home subsidies, the problem is left to individuals. The collective approach will help everyone-not just those who own their own house and have the ability to upgrade it.
We need to upgrade almost all countries 29 million households By 2050-this is a huge project that can create a lot of job opportunities.But these jobs require people with the right skills to fill their vacancies: construction workers need More than twiceThe collective approach makes it easier to coordinate trainers with the right skills to take advantage of new transformation efforts. Although the government can promise to provide funds to upgrade the country’s housing, local authorities are knowledgeable people and can do it in their area.
If we want to deal with the scale of the challenge, we need to start by upgrading our social housing. Social landlords usually own entire streets, neighborhoods, and estates, so we can upgrade the entire area at once.This will make it easier for you to use retrofit technologies that must be installed on a large scale, such as Insulated building exterior wallThe social landlord can also upgrade the house while performing other repairs, which means less disturbance to the people living there. This will benefit everyone because government investment will build skills and supply chains, drive down retrofit prices, and make homeowners and private landlords more affordable.
Upgrading our houses collectively means everyone can ensure that their houses are well insulated and heated by green energy-whether we are renting a municipal apartment or owning our own house. If we start to think collectively, we can ensure that everyone’s home is kept warm without warming the planet. If warmer homes, high-quality jobs, and no longer using dirty fossil fuels sound good to you, stay tuned for some of the big NEF jobs coming next month.
Picture: iStock
