[PAA-Discuss] Quarter of UK Homes to be Offered a Green Makeover

[Ron and Kris Graham]

Quarter of UK homes to be offered a green makeover


• 7m households earmarked for complete refit
• Move to cut emissions hinges on funds, say critics

*	Juliette Jowit <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/juliettejowit>  
*	The Guardian, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian>  Monday 9
February 2009 

Article
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/09/eco-homes-refit-emissions
/print#history-byline>  history

More than one in four homes in the UK will be offered a complete
eco-makeover under ambitious plans expected to be announced this week to
slash fuel bills and cut global warming pollution.

The campaign is thought to involve giving 7m houses and flats a complete
refit to improve insulation, and will be compared to the 10-year programme
that converted British homes to gas central heating in the 1960s and 1970s.
Householders could also be encouraged to install small-scale renewable and
low-carbon heating systems such as solar panels and wood-burning boilers.

In total, it is thought the Department of Energy and Climate Change
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change>  will commit to
cutting a third of greenhouse gas emissions from households by 2020.

The announcement by the energy and climate secretary, Ed Miliband, and the
communities and local government secretary, Hazel Blears, which is expected
on Thursday, will be widely welcomed by environmental groups and fuel
poverty campaigners who have been lobbying hard for more action to tackle
emissions from homes. The proposals are likely to require skills training
and create thousands of jobs. 

Ed Matthew, head of UK climate for Friends of the Earth, said: "Twenty-seven
percent of emissions in this country come from people's homes and if they
don't cut emissions from homes radically we have got no hope of achieving
our climate change targets." 

However, campaigners will be worried about how much money the government is
prepared to commit. Last year, the prime minister, Gordon Brown, announced
nearly £1bn from power companies for energy-saving initiatives. By contrast,
various reports have estimated the cost of insulation and small-scale clean
energy alone to be £2bn-£12.9bn a year to reach the government's target of
an 80% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Matthew said the targets would only be met if each home treated was
insulated well enough to cut those emissions by two-thirds, the financial
incentives were high enough, and people on low incomes had the work paid for
to tackle fuel poverty. It is estimated that more than 5m households are in
fuel poverty, meaning they spend more than 10% of their income on heat and
power. 

"My concern is they will not be investing enough money to take these homes
to a high enough energy efficiency standard to insulate them from rising
fuel prices," he added.

A report by Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute in 2007 found
that carbon dioxide emissions had risen 5% since Labour came into power in
1997, and only four out of every 1,000 homes had any "low-and-zero carbon
technologies". The report also warned that with rising population and
falling household numbers, emissions from the sector would rise by 23% by
the middle of the century "if nothing else changed". 

As well as the target of seven million homes, the heat and energy saving
strategy is understood to push for a dramatic increase in the level of
insulation for each house or flat, and to encourage more small-scale
zero-or-low carbon heat. 

The schemes will be voluntary, but Miliband is expected to announce
financial incentives. 

Similar schemes overseas included grants or cheap loans, transferable to a
new homeowner if the property is sold. Also, the Sustainable Energy Academy
estimates that if homeowners spend £15,000-20,000 they would save that
amount in lower bills in 10-15 years, even less if fuel prices rise. Another
possibly option is for whole districts to be offered community clean energy
schemes, or mass fitting of efficiency improvements.

The Conservatives have proposed grants of up to £6,500 per household, which
would be repaid over up to 25 years from expected savings of £160 on gas and
electricity bills.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://paa-tx.org/pipermail/discuss_paa-tx.org/attachments/20090212/377bca4a/attachment.htm>