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Climate gap report: heating

Radiator on wall

Rob Harrison and Ruth Strange discuss the findings around heating from Closing the Climate Gap 2024: An annual report on progress towards sustainable consumer lifestyles in the UK.

Actions taken this decade will be crucial in mitigating the worst impacts of climate breakdown. Yet, according to our Climate Gap research, we are not cutting emissions fast enough across any of our key lifestyle areas - including in heating our homes.

Heating and the climate gap

Heating accounts for about 14% of UK emissions, and over three quarters of that is from homes. Our homes are among the worst insulated in Europe. 

We are way behind on two of the three heating targets, with an unclear picture on emissions from heating.

Insulation way behind the target

Unfortunately, government funded insulation installations for fuel-poor homes are still significantly lower than they were a decade ago, and we are way off the target needed.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) target is an average of more than 1 million insulation installations needed per year. As of 2021, installations are only 100,000 a year (the CCC has no more recent figures).

There is an urgent need for the UK Government to improve the energy efficiency of rented homes, which it has stated it plans to do.

Residential heating emissions down

Emissions from residential heating fell again in 2023 and the CCC say they think this indicator is on track. 

However, the CCC think that high energy prices and warmer-than-average temperatures are playing a role in the reduction. That is, people are choosing to use less heating due to cost and not needing it as much due to milder winters, rather than planetary concerns about using less. 

Heat pump installations graph - data in the report
UK heat pump installations

Heat pumps also lagging behind

As can be seen in the graph for heat pump installations, this target is currently a very long way off.

A heat pump is a very low-carbon heating option, even more so as the electricity grid decarbonises further. The CCC 2024 progress report noted again that installations were significantly off track, at “just over 60,000 in 2023, only a 4% increase compared to the previous year.” 

The number of trained heat pump installers is also off track.

The CCC report says “The total installation rate seen in 2023 will need to increase substantially by the end of the decade, to ensure that approximately 10% of current homes are heated by a heat pump, compared to around 1% today. The UK is significantly behind other European countries.” 

The Netherlands for example has increased the number of heat pump installations per household by nearly 10 times over the past decade through the introduction of financial incentives. However, the CCC report notes that the gas-electricity price ratio is much smaller in the Netherlands, which makes switching to heat pumps more financially viable.

Actions for government, companies and consumers

The report card below summarises the key actions consumers, governments and businesses need to take in order to help meet the CCC's 2030 targets.

Heating Report Card 2024


 		 Home insulation installations Heat pumps installed Emissions from home heating
Actions for government Subsidise; provide clear and consistent framework; mandate and enforce quality standards. Subsidise; support rapid growth in trained heat pump installers; remove policy costs from electricity prices. Subsidise; provide clear and consistent framework; mandate and enforce quality standards.
Actions for companies Insulate commercial buildings; develop creative funding instruments; address the skills gaps. Install heat pumps in commercial buildings; develop creative funding instruments; address the skills gaps. Reduce demand through smarter heating; support Business Declares.
Actions for consumers Insulate your home; support the Warm this Winter coalition; see the Great Homes Upgrade toolkit; Get a heat pump if suitable for your home; support Just Stop Oil non-violent direct action; find a United for Warm Homes local group. Reduce demand; support the Climate and Nature bill; support the right to protest via Amnesty and Liberty.

Access the 2024 Climate Gap report

A summary and PDF of the 2024 report and the other impact areas is available on our campaign page.

The reports include the evidence behind all the information.

At a glance graphs

The 2024 report includes 12 graphs, like the heat pumps graph above, across the four impact areas of food, heating, transport and consumer goods. These graphs are quick ways to see where progress is taking place, and where the target is going to be very difficult to achieve.

Your feedback

After you have read this report, we’d really appreciate your feedback to help us understand the impact it is having, and improve this in future years.

Handy advice on climate actions you can take

We are creating a series of articles highlighting actions you can take for the climate on the areas of food, heating, transport and consumer goods - see the links below for some heating related advice:

Join in

Combined efforts can have greater impact than people on their own. Key heating campaigns to support include:

  • Warm This Winter: coalition of environmental and anti-poverty groups
  • United for Warm Homes: a Friends of the Earth project to support people to set up local campaigns in their own communities
  • Great Homes Upgrade: campaign from New Economics Foundation with a toolkit for actions supporters can take locally
  • Just Stop Oil: non-violent direct action campaign to do what its name suggests
  • Amnesty: defends people’s fundamental rights to peaceful protest
  • Liberty: defends people’s fundamental rights to peaceful protest
  • Climate & Nature Bill: this bill aims to require the UK government to systematically address all consumption (and other) impacts according to the best available science.

We would like to express gratitude to Ecology Building Society for its sponsorship of the 2023 Climate Gap Report.

Ecology Building Society logo

What is the Climate Gap report?

Ethical Consumer's first Climate Gap report was published in October 2021, to track progress towards sustainable consumer lifestyles in the UK. The report helps identify how consumers, governments and companies can work together to help fix the climate crisis.

The report's aim is to track the gap between our current combined consumption emissions and where they need to be by 2030. A second key aim of the project is to produce a simplified list of key actions for consumers, companies and governments.

The report has four sections on the areas where our lifestyle climate impacts are the biggest: food, housing, transport and consumer goods, covering 75% of combined total consumer emissions. It compares where consumer behaviour is in these areas against 2030 targets from reports issued by the UK Government's own Climate Change Committee (CCC). Read more about whether the CCC's targets themselves are robust enough, in the Key Findings on our campaign page.

We update the report annually, to provide targets for consumers, companies and government each year.

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