‘Stop building c** p houses’

Climate change chief’s tirade over energy-wasting new properties

BRITAIN must stop building ‘ crap houses’ that waste energy, a Tory former environment secretary has warned.

Lord Deben chairs the Committee on Climate Change which this week called on Britain to achieve ‘net zero’ on greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

That would mean replacing domestic gas boilers with hydrogren-powed models or ‘ heat pumps’ and keeping thermostats down to 19C (66F).

It would also require a ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2030, eating less meat and dairy and taking far fewer flights.

The report said that improvements to housing could even save the country money.

Lord Deben, the former John Selwyn Gummer, told the House of Lords yesterday: ‘We can reach net zero. We can meet it by 2050 and the mechanism is there. That means stop building crap houses that don’t give the owners a proper kind of energy efficiency. It means let’s have the kind of heating that doesn’t need fossil fuels.

‘Climate change will happen, it does happen. It’s not a threat in the sense of being something that is possible. Unless we intervene it will overwhelm us. The deniers have lost the battle because the science is fundamentally clear. The new battle is not to make people believe... the new battle is to take the steps that are necessary.’

Labour’s Lord Prescott said the threat posed by climate change was an emergency needing ‘fundamental changes’.

Parliament’s only Green peer, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb, hailed the Extinction rebellion campaign, which brought London to a standstill for two weeks, as a ‘breath of fresh air’ and its tactics as ‘legitimate and highly effective’. She added: ‘It has drawn the climate and ecological emergency to the forefront of political debate.’

Lady Jones condemned existing ‘net zero’ targets as ‘unambitious and shockingly weak’ and called for a two-year parliament focused entirely on climate and ecology plus ‘massive state intervention’ and nationalisation. Energy Minister Lord Henley said: ‘We have demonstrated to the world how emission reductions can be delivered whilst at the same time growing not only our own economy, but the economies of other countries in the world.’

But last night a Sky News poll showed that more than half of the country rejects the main report recommendations.

A majority of Britons are not willing to eat less red meat, fly less or drive less to reduce the nation’s carbon emissions.