Buildings: Carbon Emissions

(asked on 15th April 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of potential effect of delaying the publication of the Heat and Buildings strategy on his Department’s ability to reduce carbon emissions in line with legally binding carbon budgets.


Answered by
Anne-Marie Trevelyan Portrait
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
This question was answered on 21st April 2021

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 the Heat and Buildings Strategy in due course, which will set out our policies and plans for the 2020s, demonstrating how they work together to ensure we are on track for net zero by the end of the decade. The Strategy will build on the content of my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s 10 Point Plan and the Energy White Paper, setting the strategic context for decision making, institutional arrangements and enabling functions that will be critical to achieving the transition to low carbon heating.

The Heat and Buildings Strategy has not delayed policy implementation. Over the last 6 months, the Government has published and delivered a number of landmark policies and consultations, including the launch of Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme and Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, and a consultation on introducing a performance based policy framework for large commercial and industrial buildings, proposals to introduce Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards on Lenders as well as increasing ambition in the Non-Domestic Private Rented Sector to EPC B by 2030, where cost-effective.

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