Labour welcomes report putting UK onto the path to net zero energy emissions in the 2030s
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Today (Thursday), Labour welcomes an expert fast-track plan to
clean up the UK’s energy system. At Labour Party Conference
2019, motions were adopted calling on the Party to “work towards a
path to net zero carbon emissions by 2030” and “work towards a path
of net zero carbon emissions within keeping of the IPCC advice
including to keep global average temperature rises below
1.5C”. In line with this, Labour tasked a group of
independent energy...Request free trial
Today (Thursday), Labour welcomes an expert fast-track plan to clean up the UK’s energy system. At Labour Party Conference 2019, motions were adopted calling on the Party to “work towards a path to net zero carbon emissions by 2030” and “work towards a path of net zero carbon emissions within keeping of the IPCC advice including to keep global average temperature rises below 1.5C”. In line with this, Labour tasked a group of independent energy industry experts with identifying the most radical feasible pathway to decarbonise the energy system by 2030.
Electricity and heating across the UK makes up 56% of the UK’s carbon emissions. Their report, 30 by 2030, identifies four goals to transform the UK’s energy supply and use: reducing energy waste in buildings and industry; decarbonising heat; boosting renewable and low carbon electricity generation and balancing the UK’s supply and demand.
Thirty recommendations to meet these goals include upgrading every home in the UK with energy saving measures like insulation and double glazing, focusing first on damp homes and areas with fuel poverty; installing 8 million heat pumps; installing 7,000 off-shore wind turbines, 2,000 more on-shore wind turbines and solar panels covering an area 22,000 football pitches, tripling the UK’s current capacity.
By 2030 the recommended investment in the energy sector would lead to a net benefit of £800 billion to the economy - the equivalent to the whole economy of Holland or Turkey - and create 850,000 new skilled jobs in green industry.
Upgrading housing stock has the potential to end to the fuel poverty currently affecting 2.5 million households. By 2030 these measures could mean 565,000 less cases of asthma due to reduced damp. Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy could result in 6,200 avoided respiratory related deaths a year by 2030 due to improved air quality. Overall, benefits to public health have the potential to save the NHS £400 million per year. Commenting on the report, Shadow Secretary for BEIS, Rebecca Long Bailey said: “This report makes a major contribution to Labour’s plans to kickstart a Green Industrial Revolution. “The Labour Party has among the most ambitious climate targets in the world and is the only party turning their targets into detailed, credible plans to tackle the climate and environmental crisis. “Inaction on climate by Conservative and Lib-Dem Coalition Governments has led to a lost decade in the race to cut emissions from our energy system. The recommendations in this report could put the UK on track for a zero-carbon energy system during the 2030’s – but only if rapid progress is made early on. The next five years are therefore crucial. “We are working with trade unions to ensure that the changes to our energy system will be planned democratically, with the interests of workers and local communities at the heart of the transition.” Notes to Editors
It is estimate that local PM2.5 levels are 21% local non-transport (stationary combustion) and 45% regional UK. This implies a 66% of local PM2.5 levels have some dependence on fossil fuel combustion, this has been assumed to be 50%, so 33% over all (https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat09/1204301513_AQD2010mapsrep_master_v0.pdf). Then of that 33% impact, a reduction of 78% will be seen due to the recommendations of this report as we move away from fossil fuel based electricity and heat generation. These assumptions have been applied using a methodology based on work undertaken by C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wSORn0yOYS5kcZXql_nEH98EEvC1OscR/view), to estimate the overall health benefits of delivering the above 30 recommendations. It is estimated that by 2030 this very significant reduction in fossil fuel use for energy could save 6,200 avoidable deaths per year.
4% of UK homes have serious damp concerns, and 17.5% of the UK population have been diagnosed with a form of asthma according to the World Health Survey https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3353191/table/T1/?report=objectonly. Damp is known to cause asthma, and so improving the quality of all UK homes, with a focus on damp, will result in higher likelihood of asthma. The mould – asthma risk ratio is around 1.4. Using this evidence, and a methodology developed and used by C40 (https://www.c40.org/benefits), estimates can be made of the fewer cases of asthma expected by 2030 by removing the majority of cases of damp (assumed 90% success rate). As such, it is estimated that by 2030 around 560,000 cases of asthma will have been avoided through reducing the amount of damp housing in the UK.
In the 2017 to 2018 winter period, there were an estimated 50,100 excess winter deaths in England and Wales. The number of excess winter deaths in 2017 to 2018 was the highest recorded since winter 1975 to 1976. This is for a whole range of reasons, but poorly insulated and cold homes is a contributing factor. C40 have developed a methodology for estimating the impact of increasing the average temperature of the coldest homes on cold deaths. This methodology was used to estimate the impact of increasing internal temperatures by an average of 2 degrees centigrade, more than feasible based on a whole home retrofit as proposed in this document. It is estimated that of the roughly 50,000 extra deaths due to cold each year, around 1,500 can be avoided through delivering a UK wide home retrofit program as proposed in this document.
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