ZERO CARBON IN UK HOMES

Britain sets sights on "zero carbon" homes
Jeremy Lovell, December 13, 2006 (Reuters via Yahoo News)
- Britain set out plans on Wednesday to help tackle global warming by making all new housing "zero carbon" within a decade.

- From 2016 green new homes should generate from renewable or low carbon sources at least as much electricity as they use…
Homes produce some 40 million tonnes of carbon a year or about one quarter of Britain's greenhouse gases, making them the third largest emitter after business and transport…

- There are a number of definitions of "zero carbon" ranging from using renewable building materials and transport fuel to sharply reducing emissions from usage -- including recycling household waste…[For this government initiative] the term "zero carbon" meant all emissions from power generation after construction and did not include…the "embodied" carbon in the building materials or transport to the site…
- Former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern said in October that urgent action on global warming was vital, and that delay would multiply the cost 20 times.
- Britain, a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol on curbing carbon emissions, has pledged to go even further and cut its own greenhouse gases by 60 percent by 2050 -- a target that is proving elusive and which environmentalists say is too timid.
- top rated houses would be energy efficient and use renewables like solar panels, rooftop wind turbines, wood pellets, mini combined heat and power stations…regulations would be tightened to ensure all new buildings were environmentally friendly…tax breaks [would] encourage home buyers to opt for green homes…Environmentalists welcomed the move, noting that although new homes now accounted for a fraction of the housing stock they would constitute about one-third of the total by mid-century.