Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the Heat and Building Strategy will include a carbon saving of at least 71 million tonnes of CO2 between 2023 and 2032 as a minimum target in order to align with the UK’s nationally determined contribution for COP26.

In order to meet our Net Zero by 2050 target, we must act now to tackle the emissions produced by heating. in order to ensure continued progress, we have set a series of legally binding “carbon budgets”, which are amongst the most stringent climate targets in the world.

The Government is planning to publish a Heat and Buildings Strategy in due course, which will set out the immediate actions we will take for reducing emissions from buildings, setting out the interventions required to meet our ambitious carbon budget targets, with a particular focus on carbon budgets 4 and 5. These actions include the deployment of energy efficiency measures and low carbon heating as part of an ambitious programme of work required to enable key strategic decisions on how we achieve the mass transition to low-carbon heat and set us on a path to decarbonising all homes and buildings.

We will also publish a comprehensive Net Zero Strategy ahead of COP26, setting out the Government’s vision for transitioning to a net zero economy. This will raise ambition as we outline our path to meet net zero by 2050, our Carbon Budgets and Nationally Determined Contribution.