The UK, and England in particular has a continual growing population. At the current time, and for much of the last few decades, this population growth is mostly as a result of immigration.
The government has laid out plans to build 300,000 new homes a year in order to handle the growing population. The problem with this plan, is the fact that house building is a carbon intensive activity, which means that we would use up all of the current carbon budget (in order to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
What does this mean? Well, frankly, there are 2 choices. Either we do not build the houses, or we need to cut our emissions elsewhere, so that we can have the carbon budget for this.
I would like to see the transportation industry and electricity generation to move to green sources faster. Another thing that is essential, is to increasingly build ground based thermal and other expensive carbon neutral heating systems, and then send this heat into peoples homes.
Finally, the government needs to increase the rules on new build homes, so that they are as close to carbon neutral as is possible.
As if to underline this issue, the British high court has recently ruled that the UK government has acted unlawful in its climate strategy. The case was brought by ClientEarth, Friends of the Earth and Good Law Project, The chief judge (Mr Justice Holgate) finds that the Net zero Strategy which sets out plans to decarbonize the economy, does not meet the governments obligations under the Climate Change Act. This will require the government to update its plans. During the court proceedings, it was discovered that calculations showed that it would fall 5% short from what was promised. While 5% does not sound big, in actual fact this is 75 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
Will the government correct this? we all need to be writing to our MPs on this matter.