Ed Miliband will reject calls from the Government’s own climate advisers to ban the sale of new gas boilers by 2035, The i Paper understands.
In its seventh carbon budget report, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) said households could save hundreds of pounds a year by switching away from fossil fuels and embracing electric vehicles and heat pumps.
The panel of experts said the planned phase-out of new gas boilers from 2035 would need to be reinstated in order for all homes to be “fully decarbonised” by 2050 – meeting the UK’s net-zero commitments.
By 2040, the committee said it expected half of all homes to be heated using heat pumps compared to just 1 per cent in 2023.
But sources close to the Energy Secretary insisted it was not the Government’s position to impose a ban on new boilers, putting Miliband at odds with the independent CCC.
Last month, Miliband told MPs he was “very wary of saying that we will stop people having gas boilers at a point when we cannot guarantee that heat pumps will be cheaper for people”.
In its latest advice, the panel urged ministers to commit to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 87 per cent on 1990 levels by 2040.
It set out what it said was a deliverable and cost-effective route to the cuts required from 2038 to 2042 to ensure the UK meets its legally-binding goal to cut climate pollution to net zero by 2050.
Around a third of the emissions cuts over this period would have to come from action by households, mainly by purchasing an electric car, and a heat pump to replace an old gas boiler.
The committee added that personal choices – such as eating less meat and dairy, and flying less – would play a “smaller, but important role” in cutting emissions.
The report said: “Meat products will be mainly replaced by existing alternative protein products, some plant-based whole foods and, in the later years, novel alternative proteins.”
However, this was also dismissed by the Government.
Asked if the Prime Minister expected the public to cut down on eating meat, Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman said: “No. We’re not going to tell people what they do. We’ve set out our targets, we’ve set out ambitious targets, but we’re not going to start telling people how to live their lives.
“The Government will obviously set Government policy on its own pathway to achieve the next carbon budget, and will do so in a way that ensures it delivers energy security, protects bill-payers and creates good jobs.”
The Government has to decide on the level of cuts it will commit to for the period 2038-2042, which is the seventh in a series of five-year “carbon budgets”. This will decision will be put to a vote in Parliament by the end of June next year.
Miliband, the Energy and Net Zero Secretary, said the Government would consider the independent advice.
He said: “It is clear that the best route to making Britain energy secure, bringing down bills and creating jobs is by embracing the clean energy transition.
“This Government’s clean-energy superpower mission is about doing so in a way that grows our economy and makes working people better off.
“We owe it to current generations to seize the opportunities for energy security and lower bills, and we owe it to future generations to tackle the existential climate crisis.”
A phase-out of new gas boilers by 2035 had previously been floated by Boris Johnson in 2021.
Comments
Leave a Comment