Thomas Farquhar, chief operating officer of Heatio, has highlighted a lack of government progress after the Climate Change Committee (CCC)’s Seventh Carbon Budget this week.
He said: “The Climate Committee’s latest ‘carbon budget’ has highlighted the huge gap between the UK’s home decarbonisation and the rest of Europe. We are being left behind by European countries who are improving energy security for consumers whilst decarbonising, whilst the UK remains dangerously reliant on fossil fuel imports.
“This was highlighted yesterday when yet another increase in the energy price cap was announced, with consumers being hit again by further energy cost increases right in the middle of a cost of living crisis. We have had decades of misinformation across low carbon technologies like Heat Pumps and EV’s and whilst countries like Norway have already switched 66% of their homes to a Heat Pump, we are still fitting 1.7m of our homes every year with a boiler.
“Our Energy Security has never been worse and energy prices for consumers keep on rising. We have to stop treating Net Zero like a political football, that can be kicked down the road for someone else to deal with. It’s not just about protecting the planet, it’s now about more homes than ever being in fuel poverty, people unable to afford their own heating and energy prices only going one way.”