We might have hoped that waste and cock-up were confined to the UK government’s procurement response to a global pandemic. But this New Year brought the first earnest of what we can look forward to with climate change. November’s ’10-point plan’ for Johnson’s ‘green industrial revolution’ – a term lifted from one of Corbyn’s popular manifesto promises – will, he claims, create green jobs, continue the PM’s mission to ‘level up’ across the country, and help drive a green recovery from covid-19. Seventh out of ten was to be the installation in our homes, schools and hospitals of 600,000 heat pumps every year by 2028, creating 50,000 new jobs by 2030.
No-carbon
At first sight, this was a heartening flagship commitment, since homes are responsible for 20% of UK CO2 emissions and a major opportunity to build back better to hit the zero carbon target. Heat pumps require a minimal level of electricity to power them, available from renewable sources: in short, heat pumps are green, a no-carbon option. It is also a massive commitment in job retraining, job creation and ramping up production, since the vast majority of the UK’s 29 million homes once surveyed will require upgrading – and that is without taking into account the need for wider retrofitting.
Boris’ promise includes no mention of retrofitting and who will pay for that. A bit like rolling out a massive testing programme without any provision for supporting covid victims to isolate, installing heat pumps in themselves is a wholly inadequate offer, when the level of heat they produce is less than we currently live with, so adding insulation, draught proofing and so forth to reduce the external heat required is essential to the success of any such scheme. Overall costs are estimated at more like £25 – 40,000 per home.
