Housing, Carbon Emissions and Climate Change

Abstract

In the face of climate change, housing plays a crucial role in reducing carbon emissions. In the UK, residential buildings are responsible for a quarter of the nation’s carbon emissions (Huebner et al., 2015). As housing is one of the biggest contributors to energy consumption, accounting for as much as 29%, reducing energy use from housing is critical for achieving net zero by 2050 (Cherry et al., 2017). Over the past decades, the UK has placed increasing weight on energy efficiency improvements in housing, mainly through retrofitting and behaviour change campaigns such as the installation of smart meters (Ellsworth-Krebs, 2020). Despite the seemingly fast reduction in GHG emissions compared to other countries in the past decades, these approaches alone are unlikely to bring about a sufficient reduction in CO2 to tackle climate change (Shove, 2010; van de Ven et al., 2018; Ellsworth-Krebs, 2020). Existing approaches fail to operate outside current social scientific, economic and political orthodoxies, ruling out the non-marginal changes required for sustainable development in the face of climate change (Capstick et al., 2014; Lorentzen et al., 2017). This essay by Hosoya Misa explores the ways in which housing can go beyond the status quo to cope with climate change. Approaches to sustainable housing development in the UK are explored and evaluated in the context of climate change, along with their limitations. Housing size and type are then discussed as potential solutions, along with their barriers and recommendations.