{"id":606722,"date":"2026-08-28T00:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/606722\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T00:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:22:14","slug":"government-must-prioritise-heat-pump-installation-to-tackle-climate-chaos-environment-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/606722\/","title":{"rendered":"Government must prioritise heat pump installation to tackle climate chaos | Environment policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is hardly surprising that many who were optimistic and supportive of Andy Burnham becoming prime minister, but who also prioritised tackling climate chaos, are becoming increasingly unsure about him, given his tardiness in emphasising this threat as an overriding policy objective (Labour \u2018could lose up to 50 seats\u2019 to Greens if new drilling in North Sea approved, 19 August<\/a>).<\/p>\n

One of the problems he faces is that the political debate around energy is obsessed with relatively short-term fossil fuel supplies. Instead, the focus should be on drastically and rapidly cutting fossil fuel use in a way that reduces bills and generates secure jobs through a devolved energy programme for every postcode.<\/p>\n

Key to this must be a public commitment to rapidly \u201cget off gas\u201d. This must prioritise a rapid nationwide programme of increasing the installation of heat and cooling pumps<\/a> in all properties and making buildings more energy-efficient.<\/p>\n

An immediate source of labour could come from giving work to existing workers made redundant by Keir Starmer\u2019s ill-thought-out policy to cut energy bills by dropping investment<\/a> in energy saving. Nothing concrete was put in its place and Andrew Warren, chair of the British Energy Efficiency Federation, has pointed out<\/a> that a staggering 12,100 skilled professionals have already been made redundant, with a further 80,000 estimated to be made redundant in the next 12 months.<\/p>\n

A final social advantage to this approach would be that the future labour force could come from apprenticeships that create the skilled workers required and would help tackle today\u2019s youth unemployment problem.
Colin Hines
Convener, Green New Deal Group<\/p>\n

Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please email<\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is hardly surprising that many who were optimistic and supportive of Andy Burnham becoming prime minister, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-606722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}