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Taxes on electricity should be shifted to gas so people can benefit more from using green technologies such as heat pumps in their homes, government climate advisers say.
The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says the change would mean consumers would see clearer benefits from switching away from gas boilers, which emit CO2 and are a major cause of climate change.
The committee also wants the new government to reverse moves by former prime minister Rishi Sunak to slow down plans to cut carbon emissions.
The CCC says the UK is at risk of missing the 2030 climate target, which is seen as a critical step towards net zero emissions by 2050.
Net zero is when the UK is no longer adding to the total amount of global warming gases in the atmosphere.
Only one-third of the action the UK needs to take to meet the 2030 target is backed by credible plans, the CCC says in its annual report.
Key steps to take include increasing renewable energy, moving more quickly to electric vehicles and installing significantly more heat pumps in our homes to replace gas boilers.
Tree planting and peatland restoration need to be significantly increased.
According to the CCC, the rollback measures announced by Mr Sunak last autumn have harmed the UK’s overall efforts.
In particular, Mr. Sunak established exceptions for the phase-out of new fossil fuels boilers to come from 2035.
They should free about a fifth of households.
But the CCC says it “could seriously undermine the UK’s ability to achieve its targets”.
The CCC says that to get back to 2030, the proportion of households using heat pumps for heating needs to increase from today’s 1% to 10%.
The CCC wants the new government to encourage their use to reduce electricity prices, which they say are artificially high because they include things like home heating charges.
Although heat pumps powered by electricity are more efficient and use less energy than gas boilers, this is not currently reflected in the bills.
“We think that making electricity cheaper is a key thing,” said Dr. James Richardson, CCC Executive Director. He said countries such as France and the Netherlands were seeing a real acceleration in the uptake of heat pumps compared to the UK.
“It appears to be coming from this combination of the upfront support that we already have and the better balance of relative gas and electricity prices that we don’t have.”
The CCC says these charges should be spread more evenly with gas bills to give more incentive to use electricity.
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The rollback of Mr Sunak’s home heating plans is not the only aspect of the previous policy that advisers want changed.
They want to restore an earlier target to end the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030, which the Labor government says it intends to do.
Some observers believe that Mr Sunak’s attempts to insult the speed of the transition to net-zero have dented the confidence of the UK industry.
“The UK is not the only place competing for investment in renewables, you have the EU, China and the US,” said Jess Ralston of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit.
“So the signal from Sunak’s speech was very, very damaging. I think the energy industry is now hoping that we get more stability and long-term direction.”
The CCC is also recommending planning changes to increase the number of available EV charging points.
It is said that the transition to electric cars is already having an impact.
Despite an increase in car and van traffic in the UK last year, emissions from the sector fell by 1%, which the CCC says reflects the fact that we now have around 1 million electric cars on the road.
Their concern is that electric vans are not following the trend and represent only 6% of new sales.
Full details of all CCC recommendations can be found here.