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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on (1) the economy, and (2) carbon emissions, of retrofitting all publicly funded and owned buildings to achieve net zero emissions.

The Government carries out full impact assessments when setting the carbon budgets on a path to reaching our 2050 target.

The Government publishes national emissions statistics annually[1]. In 2018, the latest year for which data is available, the public sector accounted for 2% of total UK emissions.

Decarbonising the public sector will reduce carbon emissions and will contribute to economic growth and the creation of green jobs.

The impacts of unmitigated climate change are estimated at 5-20% of global GDP[2] whilst the costs of action to deliver net zero were estimated by the CCC last year[3] as 1-2% of global GDP in 2050 – and that could be partly or fully offset by benefits. The projected cost of reaching net zero has now reduced dramatically because of advances in clean energy and green technology, which we anticipate will continue to fall.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/final-uk-greenhouse-gas-emissions-national-statistics-1990-to-2018

[2] The Economics of Climate Change, The Stern Review, 2014

[3] https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/net-zero-the-uks-contribution-to-stopping-global-warming/