Reaching UK net zero target cheaper than we thought, says climate adviser | Environment | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/...ching-uk-net-zero-target-cheaper-than-we-thought-says-climate-adviser
When the Climate Change Act was passed in the UK in 2008, the government estimated that the cost of meeting its then target of an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 would be about 2% of GDP over that period. Now, the costs are expected to be well below that, and likely to fall further.
“I don’t particularly see problems [in decarbonising the economy] – what I see is an absence of a plan,” he told the Guardian. “We have to get to the point by about the start of the next decade where all new investments, every new car, every new van, every new boiler, every new bit of plant and machinery for a business – that needs to be zero carbon by then, or at least have a plan in place to become zero carbon. The biggest challenge that I see at the moment is that we haven’t got a plan that looks anything like that for the UK at the moment.”
In some sectors, moving to zero carbon will represent a cost saving. Electric cars, for instance, will be cheaper to run than petrol or diesel vehicles. Eventually, the same is likely to be true of low-carbon domestic heating, after the cost of switching. But until now, the main mechanism for paying for the move to a low-carbon economy has been additions to energy bills, which fall disproportionately on poorer people.