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While Climate Barometer tracker data shows that overall public awareness about heat pumps is low, it seems that misinformation runs through what the public do claim to know about heat pumps.
An article from Carbon Brief summarises the top myths about heat pumps circulating among the British public and media discourse, including that 24% think running a heat pump costs more than a gas boiler, and 20% think heat pumps only work in new homes (Good Energy poll).
The government’s newly published Local Power Plan points the country in a direction that the British public support: clean energy that’s transparent, affordable, and delivers real benefits to communities and their local environments.
Our latest Climate Barometer tracker shows that people across the UK are in agreement on the top priorities for new infrastructure in their area. These are: the project’s impact on the local environment, what it means for energy bills, and whether it benefits the local community.
Though their order varies slightly, these three priorities are consistently the highest for all groups across age, gender, region, social grade, housing tenure, political affiliation, education level, ethnicity, and whether they live in urban or rural areas.
People’s views on climate change and net zero were fairly low on the list, highlighting (at least when it comes to specific clean energy projects) that local impacts and practical considerations loom larger for the public than the salience of climate change as a wider issue.
This doesn’t mean joining the dots with the risks of climate change and the benefits net zero can bring isn’t important – it’s crucial. But getting the delivery of policies like the Local Power Plan right is a key route to rebuilding climate salience and shoring up support for the wider net zero programme.
While changes are being made to the Energy Companies Obligation and the Warm Homes Plan, our latest tracker poll shows that the majority (69%) of the public support government incentives for homeowners to improve home insulation. This support carries across voting lines, with even supporters of Reform, who are typically the least supportive of climate related policies, indicating majority approval (56% support).
The majority of the public are also supportive of financial support to low income families for green home upgrades. Not only is this a crucial aspect needed for a fair transition to clean energy, the relative consensus among the public is a rare opportunity.
Few policies to reduce emissions are more popular than home insulation.
Whether motivated by a desire to avoid ‘waste’, a reduction in energy bills, or a passion to protect the environment, preventing heat from seeping out of our houses is something that most people can get behind.
So the recent murmurings around the government’s Warm Homes Plan (specifically to reduce funding for insulating houses) don’t chime with popular opinion: Climate Barometer data shows that nearly three-quarters of the public (72%) support incentives and investment for homeowners and landlords to improve home insulation, compared to only 5% who oppose these. Similarly, 3 in 5 Britons (60%) are in favour of financial support to low income families to help them afford ‘green’ home upgrades like insulation.
The Treasury’s response will come in the autumn budget that looks set to be dominated by discussions about general taxation.
But Climate Barometer data shows that MPs are just as favourable towards insulation measures as the wider public: 85% support incentives and investment for homeowners and landlords to improve home insulation and 78% back financial support to low income families to help them afford ‘green’ home upgrades like insulation.