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Fuel poverty

In the UK, 16 % of all households live in fuel poverty, meaning that they spend more than 10 % of their income on energy expenses. Therefore, energy suppliers under the CERT programme must allocate 40 % of their effort to help vulnerable households, e.g. people with disabilities or low-income families.

 

“It’s hugely concerning that thanks to rising fuel prices, more people have to spend a large portion of their income on heating their homes. This makes our commitment to eradicate fuel poverty more important than ever,” says UK Environment Minister Phil Woolas in a press release from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The overall goal of the UK government is to reduce CO2 emissions by 60 % in 2050. The EEC and CERT programmes cannot reach this goal alone. Therefore, many other initiatives have been put into force such as making it mandatory for all new homes to be zero-carbon by 2016.  


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Zero-carbon houses

Report by ACE

According to a report commissioned by WWF-UK and prepared by ACE, the Centre for Sustainable Energy, from March 2008, the UK government’s current housing policies such as the EEC programme will not deliver the cuts in CO2 emissions necessary to achieve the government’s targets.

The report also documents that even if all homes did install the standard measures such as insulation, lighting and better heating systems, household CO2 emissions would be reduced by just 22 %, failing to meet the government’s own 2050 climate change targets. Although the UK government’s initiatives are a much better strategy than doing nothing, the ACE report documents the need for even more action by the politicians.

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