As tough as it will be for many people (including myself on fixed income pension) is this the kick-start that was needed to stimulate Joe Public into looking seriously at energy saving measures?

I guess too slow a rise would have been like boiling a frog. (The frog is said to not notice a slow increase in temperature.) Like the French I prefer them fried but sudden big rise in energy prices should get people thinking rather than ignoring it.

It does encourage me to plan to finish making my secondary glazing this summer.

It's odd that the only people in the news about this are 'Insulate Britain'. Far from encouraging sensible energy saving measures it's as if someone wants to make the very idea of insulation sound like an oddball thing. One of those conspiracy theories we'll be shunned for and lose friends for our beliefs. I've got a spreadsheet that calculates my beliefs on this subject.

I'm going to eat more amphibians. Don't like spending money all that much every year. Prefer a hit it advance to save a lot in the future.

For rented houses (is it more than 50% now?) that won't be an option. It's the tenant not the owner who funds the gas bill. Tenants can't do much about it. Maybe that's why the government finds it difficult to encourage energy saving measures. Most people won't be able to implement them.

I think its a real shame and the percieved benefits from it won't be as good as the very real pain from it for many.

I'm a conservationist and I consider myself a green but I really don't think any climate change problems in 100 years time will outweigh the problems for people in their own lives now.

We need cheap energy of some sort

Posted By: sellyWe need cheap energy of some sort

Cheap energy of some sort is exactly what has caused the climate crisis. We need to find ways to adapt society to using less energy. Difficulty paying bills doesn't really come into the same category as losing your house to a wildfire or having a whole island drown under you. Or going extinct, if you're a very unlucky species.

Posted By: djh

Posted By: sellyWe need cheap energy of some sort

Cheap energy of some sort is exactly what has caused the climate crisis.

and I thought it was the emissions that had caused it not the price. I find those unfortunate enough to be the position where they cannot pay the bills, where they go hungry and cannot heat their home or even end up on the street deserve a little more sympathy than a 'let them eat cake' attitude.

Posted By: Peter_in_Hungaryaccustomed for the last few decades

centuries!

djh - significant reductions in the standard of living won’t be tolerated by the electorate, in the absence of some miraculous financial skillduggery that allows the state to fund all the energy efficiency measures with no meaningful recouping of the outlay , it ain’t going to happen by 2050, net zero will most likely get pushed back 15-30 years.

The kite flying of suggesting mortgage books have to average an epc C, talk of variable stamp duty linked to efficency ratings , would just about stall the housing market, likely lead to house price decline, destroy consumer confidence and result in economic decline.

Energy policy formulated on the back of “expected” technological advancements and promises of ever cheaper wind energy ( quite how that squares with paying constraint payments to a massively enlarged wind generation industry on windy days or financial instruments to avoid paying them isn’t discussed) but still needing back up generating capacity , just doesn’t add up.

All the dreams and aspirations would be fine if we had a massively successful economy and correspondingly high budget surpluses, but we don’t and does anyone see one on the horizon?

We’ll undoubtedly get there in good time , but not before Greta has grandchildren.

Posted By: marsadayCurrently i am going all electric on a top floor flat. I am taking the gamble longer term electric will be rerated to be seen as more green. I am insulating this flat like crazy, but it is all worth zero because I will be using flexible electric heaters (not the crappy inflexible E7 ones). This means the flat just gets a low D rating.

If you insulate well, and assuming the insulation is not all internal, then the time constant of the flat should be long enough that you can use 'instantaneous' heaters on an E7 tariff, just as we do. But then we have a certified passivhaus with PV that only achieves a 'C' rating. So methinks it measures the wrong things!

I just hope electric is rerated.

It seems pretty clear it will be, eventually

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: djh</cite>PS
<blockquote><cite>Posted By: marsaday</cite>Many LL's are selling and have sold.</blockquote>That seems to be the general aim of policy. Whether it's wise or not I couldn't say.</blockquote>

The idea seems to be to encourage big corporate companies into becoming landlords with build to rent, that’s all well and good but they don’t want the bottom 20-30% of the rental market, these same lower rental value properties are precisely the ones that will be pretty uneconomic to improve and so as ever it’ll be those on lower incomes that suffer.
I don’t have a large portfolio , but they consist largely of a 2000 conversion and 2004 new build, at the time i added extra insulation and under current epc calculation all but one makes a C, remaining one would have done if i’d thought to show that the wall adjoining the common areas was insulated. BUT if the calculation is tilted to make gas less favourable , those same flats won’t make a C and in the end of the market i’m in, there’s no way i’d recoup the costs of changing over to electric and more insulation in my lifetime (at least not without huge rent increases).
As ever those on lower incomes are going to find life hard, unless there is some sort leeway or change to the proposals.
However no doubt the treasury has its beady little eye on the cgt reciepts when landlords do sell, having held my property for nigh on 20 years , the bill is significant as a resultmof the tinkering over that period to the way its levied.
Pretty sure the gov can see what will happen if the proposal goes forward as suggested, just remains to ne seenmif they have some wizard wheeze to head it off.

Posted By: sellyExtinctions are not new. Neither are wildfires exclusive to climate change.

No but they are a lot more prevalent now.

People need cheap energy to keep warm, get to work, have a decent life etc.

When I was a boy we had frost on the inside of windows in winter. We were lucky and had a car, many did not, and exceptionally few had more than one. We had good holidays at English coastal resorts and even sometimes went as far as Scotland. I remember having a happy childhood. A decent life is all a matter of definition and affordability. We can't afford to wreck the planet so we need to stop the behaviour that is causing it.

Hmmmm . . .. Now if there was some way to realistically bring the COST of environmental damage into our current Economic System . . . .
Everything would cost MORE. Everyone would have to do with LESS.
Yes, we would actually have to consider the environmental damage of our personal decisions ( which are largely or completely ignored. )
GONE would be the vast range of activities which burn fossil-fuels to fulfil peoples' whims. Whole industries, massive energy-greedy industries, have grown up to fulfil superfluous, wish-fulfilment.
Time also to reconsider the distribution of wealth so that ALL have the basics for their needs.
However, people will continue to vote for the unsustainable status-quo a.k.a self-destruction. Interesting times !!

Before anyone gets too nostalgic for the single glazing and 20mpg cars of their youth, it's worth remembering that UK CO2 emissions were massively higher back then than they are now, even including imports.

AFAICS, our reductions in CO2 since then are because people have chosen more efficient cars, boilers, windows and power stations. Overwhelmingly they chose those for more comfort and a better/cheaper lifestyle, not because they cared very much about CO2. Or because efficiency rules were imposed on light bulbs, condensing boilers and cars in ways which didn't affect anyone's comfort. Or because the coal and landfill industries were replaced by cheaper alternatives.

The implication is that further CO2 reductions come from making people more comfortable and prosperous not less: insulation, electric heat and transport, WFH instead of commuting, amenity woodland instead of industrial farmland etc.

The surge in gas and electricity prices must be a windfall opportunity for developers of wind and solar farms, not hearing much said publicly by them?

But even with more affluent lives, our absolute total emmisions (in tonnes of CO2) now are 50% less than they used to be, or 30% including offshored industry . That's the data.

As you suggested, energy efficiency is much better now. You can drive 3 Ford Focuses, for less fuel than it took to drive 1 Ford Anglia. A LED TV uses probably one tenth the materials and electricity of a CRT TV. Bogstandard DG has one third the U value of single glazing.

So even if families have two Focuses and 5 TVs now, and heat their DG house to 22 instead of 17⁰C, they are still emitting less than they used to in 'the good old days'.

When they get EVs and heat pumps in the next decade or two, they will emit even less, they will be keener on those if they get cheaper transport and warmer houses. Hair shirts are just not required!

Edit: just checking the numbers, you can now run 5 LED TVs for less CO2 than you used to get from a single incandescent lightbulb, running off a coal power station.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenBut even with more affluent lives, our absolute total emmisions (in tonnes of CO2) now are 50% less than they used to be, or 30% including offshored industry . That's the data.

There are 30% more of us (in the UK, since 1950) too, so the efficiency savings just about offset population growth. "Net Zero", but in a different way.

Posted By: bhommelsThere are 30% more of us (in the UK, since 1950) too, so the efficiency savings just about offset population growth. "Net Zero", but in a different way.

Didn't follow that, could you explain?

The total tonnes emitted by everyone in UK (adjusted for imports) are down by 30% so are now at 70% of their peak, even though the number of people is up by (you said) 30% so there are now 130% of the people - so the emissions per person are now 70/130= about 50% as much emissions per person?

That's good, though I guess it's the absolute tonnes that the climate cares about, rather than the tonnes/person.