🎧💡 Decarbonising our homes: the heat challenge

Home heating is responsible for 13% of all CO2 emitted annually in the UK, equivalent to 38.4 million cars. This is a huge problem, not only in the UK but also in other colder, richer nations such as the US, Canada and the countries of Northern Europe. There are plenty of older homes in these countries — and it is costly to modify them.

One estimate suggests that in order to achieve net-zero emissions in the UK by 2050, we need to decarbonise the heating in 20,000 homes each and every week between now and then—and we have not really begun.

I got together with Dr. Keith MacLean OBE and Mitya Pearson to discuss the carbon challenges of domestic heating. They are among the authors of Uncomfortable Home Truths: Why Britain Urgently Needs a Low Carbon Heat Strategy. Our conversation focused on the UK, but the challenges we talk about are relevant far more broadly.

Things we cover in the conversation are:

• The high cost and significant disruption associated with decarbonising domestic heat—what …