Evening Standard Comment: From heat pumps to EVs, action speaks louder than words

Britain led the world with the 2008 Climate Change Act and commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Yet look behind the curtain and, in the words of Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), “the policy is just not there” — although, with its eye-catching announcements on electric vehicles today, the Government says it is attempting to change this.

Take the way we heat our homes. According to the CCC, emissions from buildings accounted for 17 per cent of UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. As such, replacing gas boilers with heat pumps is critical.

The Government has announced it is to allocate £450 million to accelerate the installation of 90,000 heat pumps over the next three years, including £5,000 per household.

Yet this falls far short of its aim of installing 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028, which itself is less than the CCC’s recommendation of 900,000 a year by 2028, ramping up to 1.1 million by 2030.

And even if the funding matched our apparent ambition, Britain lacks the installers to do this. Figures from EY suggest we need nearly 10,000 qualified heat pump installers by 2025. At present, we have roughly 1,200.

The transition to net-zero will be costly but it is falling, now less than one per cent of GDP throughout the next 30 years. Meanwhile the price of inaction — both in fiscal terms and the damage to our planet — could scarcely be greater.

US Climate Envoy John Kerry spoke for many when he called Cop26 in Glasgow the “last best hope” to avert climate change.

Keeping 1.5C alive will require not only ambitious headline cuts, but the policies, finance and above all political will to get it done.