British households that do not switch from gas as their energy source will be punished under new government plans to reach carbon ‘net zero.’ Ministers hope to persuade voters to replace their gas boilers with electric heat pumps by “rebalancing” the costs. In a new release, the government simply said this would make electricity use “cheaper,” while The Daily Telegraph highlighted that it could also include “forcing household gas bills up.”
The takeup of heat pumps in Britain has so far fallen far short of official hopes, with the New Scientist describing the country’s record as the “worst” in Europe. 600,000 of the devices must be installed per year by 2028 in order to meet the government’s ambitious target, but just 42,779 installations took place last year. This, perhaps, is unsurprising considering that even Grant Shapps, the secretary of state for net zero, has yet to install a heat pump. The government’s target has been in place for well over two years, but Mr. Shapps has, to date, only bothered to have a survey done.
Conservative Party climate plans are clearly not popular among all its representatives in the House of Commons. Andrea Jenkyns, Tory MP for Morley and Outwood in West Yorkshire, responded to the plans in a post on Twitter, simply noting: “No to net zero.”
The official Twitter account for the Social Democratic Party also commented:
The ‘carrot’ didn’t work because only the wealthy could afford to take up the offer of heat pump subsidies. So let’s apply the ‘stick’ of making gas more expensive through levies on bills. A strategy guaranteed to force more households into fuel poverty.
Government officials defended the plans as necessary to “strengthen Britain’s long-term energy security and independence to help deliver [a] clean, prosperous future for the country.” They have, however, been critical of climate policies adopted in the U.S. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt this week took aim at Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, gloating that “it is not the starting pistol in the race for green tech. That race started decades ago in the UK, with the world now playing catch-up.” Writing in The Times, he attacked the U.S. subsidies package as encouraging a “distortive global subsidy race.” Writer Peter Franklin responded on UnHerd that the dig was “both hypocritical and incoherent” because “the difference between the Biden policy and what [pro-subsidy] Hunt talks up as ‘the British way’ is largely semantic.”
Mr. Biden’s measures have also “led to something of a panic” in Brussels, which is busy pursuing its own Green Deal (discussed here).
