Why Are Insulate Britain Risking Prison to Block Roads and Motorways?

SEASON 6 – EPISODE 2 – Why Are Insulate Britain Risking Prison to Block Roads and Motorways?

The UK has some 29 million homes and they are the oldest and least energy efficient housing stock in Europe. Every year vast amounts of precious energy are wasted in heating and, increasingly, cooling our buildings. ​

In order to meet UK commitments under the Paris Agreement to stay below 1.5C, and legal obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008, as amended in 2019, emissions from heating and powering homes must be reduced by 78% in less than 15 years and then to zero by 2050. ​

Nearly 15% of the UK’s total emissions comes from heating homes: an overhaul of the energy performance of the UK’s housing stock is needed to reduce the energy demand.

The current UK Conservative government put together a 10 point green industrial revolution promise in November last year, part of that manifesto was a promise to sort out the UK’s leaky housing stock by retrofitting insulation. They have since scrapped those plans, and are refusing to even put out a statement on when or even if this will be something that they will revisit.

The UK needs a nation-wide programme to upgrade almost every house. The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) 2018 report, Scaling Up Retro fit 2050, advises that nearly every home in the UK needs to be upgraded with energy efficiency measures. That is 1.5 homes per minute to the year 2050. ​

Currently, the UK Government does not have any long-term national strategies with a funding mechanism in place to retrofit our homes, and meanwhile new homes are still being built with gas fired heating and no solar panels.