Ban new gas boilers in UK from 2025 or risk missing net zero target, says CBI
22nd July 2020 | Residential Energy
The installation of new gas boilers must be banned from 2025 or the UK’s net-zero climate target will be “doomed”, according to a high-level commission convened by the CBI. The ban would apply to conventional gas boilers, but hybrid or hydrogen-ready boilers would be allowed under the business organisation’s recommendations, which were developed in collaboration with energy industry leaders.
The commission also said that by 2035, no boilers burning any fossil gas should be installed into homes, with technologies including heat pumps and district heating being used instead. Grants or loans should be given to help people and businesses make the switch, it said, which when combined with energy efficiency measures, would lower household energy bills. Heating is the largest single source of carbon emissions in the UK, making up more than one-third of the total. Decarbonising heat is the biggest energy challenge in tackling the climate emergency, particularly because it requires action in millions of individual homes. Currently, just 1m of the UK’s 27m homes have low-carbon heat.
Ban new gas boilers
The government’s current policy is to ban gas boilers only form 025in newly built homes. But the group said taking action to transform the UK’s hearing would create 150,000 jobs and help the nation recover from the economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Karan Bilimoria, the CBI president and chair of the heat commission, said, “A green recovery and progress towards the UK’s net zero emission target are doomed to fail if we don’t address the urgent need to decarbonise the heat in our homes and buildings. Aside from the moral imperative, there’s also a strong economic case for protecting our planet. [It} would provide a huge jobs boost at a time when [they] are needed more than ever.”
Prof Martin Freer at the University of Birmingham and part of the commission said, “Delivering decarbonisation of heating is the biggest energy challenge we face in getting to net zero. Unlike electricity, which can be changed at a systems level, it requires over 20m households to adopt new energy efficiency measure and new ways of generating heat.”
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