SHUTTERSTOCKWORLDWATCH

EDITED BY BRYONY COTTAM

POSITIVE TIPPING POINTS The UK is lagging behind in its efforts to decarbonise home heating, but progress in other sectors would help to close the gap

Many people across the UK will struggle to heat their homes this winter. As energy prices have risen, the work of organisations such as South East London Community Energy (SELCE) has become increasingly invaluable to the estimated 8.9 million households that were classed as ‘fuel poor’ last year. ‘Many people are simply bamboozled by energy markets,’ explains Giovanna Speciale, who founded SELCE to support households to switch to cheaper, more sustainable home energy solutions.

In the ten years that SELCE has been working with communities in southeast London, it has not only saved households £1.3 million on bills, it has also prevented an additional 10.4 million kilograms of CO2 emissions. ‘But we desperately need more support from the government,’ says Speciale.

Heating the UK’s 28 million homes accounted for 18 per cent of all UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2021,

making sustainable home energy a key component of the UK’s transition to net zero emissions by 2050. In its sixth carbon budget report, published in 2020, the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) advised that nearly 11 million houses needed to move from gas to renewable heat sources by 2035 to achieve that target. Three years later, however, the CCC reported that the UK has ‘lost its clear global leadership position on climate action,’ and was lagging behind other European countries in its efforts to cut emissions from buildings – largely due to the poor uptake of heat pumps. The National Audit Office has called the UK government’s expectations for heat pump installations by 2028 (600,000 per year) ‘optimistic’.

‘I really can’t see a fundamental reason why we couldn’t be doing a whole lot better, when comparable Western and Northern European countries have made so much more progress,’ says Tim Lenton, a professor

8 . GEOGRAPHICAL

In Norway, a government heat pump subscription service has led to widespread adoption of climate change and Earth system science at the University of Exeter. He points to Norway, where 60 per cent of households have heat pumps. ‘Even if you have a poorly insulated house, you’re still going to have a more efficient system that’s going to be cheaper to run.’

Lenton’s research shows that, compared with other high-emissions sectors (such as road transport), the transition to sustainable home heating faces the most uneven global progress, with the UK being notably slow to adapt. However, it’s also the sector with the most potential to benefit from advancements in other green technologies, thanks to a concept that Lenton calls ‘positive tipping points’.

Just as rising temperatures can trigger irreversible and accelerating changes, such as the collapse of Arctic ice sheets, Lenton explains that government action to advance the transition of one green technology can set off a chain reaction of positive tipping points in other sectors, one that ultimately leads to a global shift away from fossil fuels. ‘For example, increased use of clean electricity or energy storage in one sector drives innovation and brings down the cost of these technologies, enabling faster transitions in the other sectors,’ says Simon Sharpe,