After stagnating during the 1990s and early 2000s, emissions from the UK building sector have been declining since 2004. In 2019, direct building sector emissions were only 17% below 1990 levels, however, underscoring the magnitude of the task remaining to achieve full decarbonisation of the building sector.¹⁷

This decline in emissions was realised despite only a 6% reduction in non-electricity energy consumption.¹⁶ The discrepancy between these two figures is primarily due to a steep decline in the combustion of solid fuels in both residential and commercial buildings, more than offsetting a rise in the use of natural gas.

Reversing the growth in natural gas consumption will be necessary to reach the 44-48% reduction in direct CO₂ emissions below 2019 levels by 2030, and close to zero by 2050, as shown by the illustrative 1.5°C pathways. An announced 2035 ban on the installation of new gas boilers is a good start, but not sufficient on its own.

The UK has introduced several measures aimed at reducing building sector emissions, but to a large extent, these have been ineffective. There is a long history of poorly designed, rushed, or underfunded schemes that have failed to stimulate a large enough uptake of key technologies like heat pumps and building insulation to generate deep emission cuts.^18–20 A government target of 600,000 heat pump installations per year by 2028 is ambitious, but recently announced grant funding as part of a long-awaited ‘Heat and Buildings Strategy’ is unlikely to be sufficient to achieve it.²¹

¹ UK Government. UK becomes first major economy to pass net zero emissions law. (2019).

² UK Government. 2018 UK greenhouse gas emissions: final figures – data tables. (2020).

³ UK Government. Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2020: Electricity. (2020).

⁴ UK Government. 2018 UK greenhouse gas emissions: final figures – data tables. (2020).

⁵ UK Government. Updated Energy and Emissions Projections 2019: Annex J Total Electricity Generation by Source. (2020).

⁶ UK Government. Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2020: Main Chapters and Annexes A to D dataset. (2020).

⁷ UK Government. Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2013: Annex I (Energy Balance: Net Calorific Values). (2020).

⁸ UK Government. Updated Energy and Emissions Projections 2019: Annex A Greenhouse gas emissions by source. (2020).

⁹ UK Government. Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2020: Main Chapters and Annexes A to D dataset. (2020).

¹⁰ UK Government. Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2013: Annex I (Energy Balance: Net Calorific Values). (2020).

¹¹ UK Government. UK becomes first major economy to pass net zero emissions law. (2019).

¹² UK Committee on Climate Change. Letter: International aviation and shipping and net zero. (2019).

¹³ Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy. Energy Trends March 2021. (2021).

¹⁴ Edwardes-Evans, H. UK to open new CFD auction for onshore wind, solar projects. S&P Global Platts (2020).

¹⁵ National Grid ESO. Record-breaking 2020 becomes greenest year for Britain’s electricity. (2021).

¹⁶ UK Government. Energy and emissions projections: Net Zero Strategy baseline (partial interim update December 2021) Annex J: Total electricity generation by source. (2022).

¹⁷ UK Government. UK 2021 Common Reporting Format (CRF) Table. (2021).

¹⁸ UK National Audit Office. Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme. (2021).

¹⁹ UK House of Commons. Energy efficiency: building towards net zero. (2019).

²⁰ UK National Audit Office. Low carbon heating of homes and businesses and the Renewable Heat Incentive. (2018).

²¹ Gabbatiss, J. In-depth Q&A: How will the UK’s ‘heat and buildings strategy’ help achieve net-zero? CarbonBrief, (2021).

²² UK Government. Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy. (2021).

²³ UK Government. UK Hydrogen Strategy (2021).

²⁴ S&P Global. Blue hydrogen stirs debate as chair of UK lobby group resigns over skepticism. (2021).

²⁵ Howarth, R. W. & Jacobson, M. Z. How green is blue hydrogen? Energy Science & Engineering ese3.956 (2021) doi:10.1002/ESE3.956.

²⁶ Climate Analytics. Why gas is the new coal. (2021).

²⁷ Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy. The Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. 1–38 (2020).

²⁸ UK Government. Transport Decarbonisation Plan. (2021).

²⁹ While global cost-effective pathways assessed by the IPCC Special Report 1.5°C provide useful guidance for an upper-limit of emissions trajectories for developed countries, they underestimate the feasible space for such countries to reach net zero earlier. The current generation of models tend to depend strongly on land-use sinks outside of currently developed countries and include fossil fuel use well beyond the time at which these could be phased out, compared to what is understood from bottom-up approaches. The scientific teams which provide these global pathways constantly improve the technologies represented in their models – and novel CDR technologies are now being included in new studies focused on deep mitigation scenarios meeting the Paris Agreement. A wide assessment database of these new scenarios is not yet available; thus, we rely on available scenarios which focus particularly on BECCS as a net-negative emission technology. Accordingly, we do not yet consider land-sector emissions (LULUCF) and other CDR approaches which developed countries will need to implement in order to counterbalance their remaining emissions and reach net zero GHG are not considered here due to data availability.

³⁰ In analysed global-least cost pathways assessed by the IPCC Special Report 1.5°C, the energy sector assumes already a certain amount of carbon dioxide removal technologies, in this case bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS).