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Heating Britain’s draughty homes during the “beast from the east” caused greenhouse gas emissions to rise by 2.5m tonnes in 2018, or half of the total emissions of Albania.
Official figures showed the emissions from homes and public buildings rose sharply as a result of a Siberian weather system, in part because many still rely on gas heating and subpar insulation.
The cold snap in early 2018 caused emissions from homes to rise by 4% from the year before, according to the government’s data, or the equivalent of a small country’s annual emissions.
The sharp increase is small relative to the UK’s total carbon footprint but is the same as the total emissions from Niger, which has a population of 22 million people, and half the total annual emissions of Uganda.
National Energy Action (NEA), a fuel poverty charity, urged the government to make good on its election promises to help improve home energy efficiency before the UK hosts the next round of international UN climate talks in Glasgow this year.
Peter Smith, a director at the NEA, said UK residential emissions “are rising at a time when the world is looking to us for global leadership” on the climate crisis.
Overall, the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions fell by 2% from the year before, to 366m tonnes, mainly because of heavy cuts to the amount of coal used to generate electricity.
The country’s cleaner energy system has helped emissions to fall by 43% since 1990. But the government’s official climate advisers, at the Committee on Climate Change, have warned that the housing stock remained “unfit” for the challenge of meeting the UK’s long-term climate targets.
But the country’s record on tackling home energy waste has slowed in recent years after government ministers axed schemes to help insulate homes.
“Improvements in home insulation and more efficient heating systems are recognised as the cheapest way to cut carbon emissions to reach net zero and end fuel poverty but since 2012 investment in domestic efficiency has declined steeply,” Smith said.
At the current rate of progress, the NEA estimates the UK will take 56 years to reach its targets for solid wall insulation and 39 years to meet its goals for loft insulation.
The Conservative party manifesto pledged to accelerate the UK’s attempts to combat energy waste by investing £9.2bn on improving efficiency in domestic and public buildings.
It also promised a £3.8bn fund to help cut carbon emissions from social housing and £2.5bn for fuel poor homes. Smith said: “For the poorest households in the least efficient homes, this investment cannot come soon enough.”
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