More people buy electric cars and heat pumps than ever before

More people buy electric cars and install heat pumps than ever, but these figures must increase even more, according to government climatic advisers.

The independent climate change committee said that the government should ensure that households benefit from the transition to cleaner technologies thanks to lower invoices.

“The government has progressed on a number of fronts, including on their own power, [but] They must do more to make electricity cheap, “said Emma Pinchbeck, CCC director general, at BBC News.

In response, the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband thanked the Committee for his advice and said he was determined to pass the bills.

According to the law, the United Kingdom must stop adding to the total quantity of heating greenhouse gas in the planet in the atmosphere by 2050. This is known as “net zero”.

It is essential to reach zero net carbon dioxide worldwide to limit global warming.

The anterior political consensus around the objective of the United Kingdom has broken down, however, the conservative leader Kemi Badenoch the brand “Impossible” and the reform using the “net Stupid Zero” sentence.

But the committee argues that it is achievable and could lead to long -term economic advantages.

“”[The UK] Can absolutely meet net zero by 2050, “said Pinchbeck.

Greenhouse gas emissions inside the United Kingdom’s borders have already dropped more than half since 1990.

But it is mainly because polluting fossil fuels – in particular coal – have been increasingly replaced by renewable energies such as wind and solar energy for electricity production.

The largest transmitters in the United Kingdom have been transport and buildings, which will also have to be cleaner to help reach Net Zero.

The CCC sees signs of progress, including a doubling close to the number of electric cars on British roads in the past two years. Almost one in five new car sold in 2024 was electric.

This contributed to reducing transport emissions – not to mention planes and ships – for the second consecutive year, even if traffic levels increased last year.

While the new electric cars are more expensive to buy than their petrol equivalents, the CCC expects them to cost the same in a few years.

Many second -hand models are already as cheap and electric cars can also be more economical to work.

“We see these transitions occurring surprisingly quickly once they start, generally starting slowly and speeding up quickly, where the drop in prices and the increase in demand are strengthened each other,” said Dr. Emily Nurse, head of the CCC de Net Zero.

“When this is combined with an effective policy, it can really lead to this rapid change.”

Sales of electric heat pumps also increase quickly, up more than half of last year, thanks in part to the subsidies presented under the Conservatives, said the CCC. But they remain well below the target.

The Committee has also welcomed the relaxation of the new government of planning rules, which, she said, should encourage more people to install heat pumps.

But even after subsidies, they can be expensive to install and although they are much more effective than a gas boiler, they are not necessarily cheaper to execute.

Indeed

The most important reason for the rise in household electricity prices in recent years is the increase in wholesale costs, driven by international gas prices, according to the CCC.

“The only way to lower invoices for good is to become a clean energy superpowered and we continue to work tirelessly to provide a specific power to families and businesses,” said energy secretary Ed Miliband.

But the Committee adds that electricity bills are artificially high because costs are added to them to support largely older renewable energy projects – which were more expensive – as well as upgrades of energy efficiency.

On Monday, the government announced its intention to remove these costs for certain companies.

Removing them from household electricity bills would also be a rapid solution for high prices in the United Kingdom, which makes it much cheaper to manage an electric car or a heat pump, the committee said.

But these costs should go somewhere, potentially on general taxation.

It would be “about £ 200 on the average [household] Bill but at a cost of around 6 billion pounds sterling per year at the chessboard, “said Adam Bell, director of policies at Stonehaven Consultancy and former head of energy strategy in the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Additional reports by Jonah Fisher and Miho Tanaka