Unlocking the benefits of the clean energy economy

1 January 2027. We are investing in monitoring our import emissions through the new Production and Consumption Transformation Centre, announced in July 2025. This will inform policy development on energy and material efficiency and identify the factors driving imported emissions. We are also reducing the need for new and carbon-intensive materials. Our forthcoming Circular Economy Strategy will focus on reducing waste and reusing materials across key sectors. Government is also working with industry to identify opportunities to establish product classifications and an embodied emissions reporting framework for steel, cement and concrete which will provide people and businesses with better information to buy low-carbon goods from home and abroad. We are working in partnership to support decarbonisation across all levels of the economy. For example, earlier this year we re-launched the Net Zero Council, which brings together government, business, finance, trade unions, local government and civil society. The Net Zero Council, in collaboration with the Transition Finance Council, is leading work to agree a clear framework for sector transition plans and support their development and delivery - and the government is committed to supporting this work. Improved quality of life and health From warmer homes to cleaner air to more affordable travel, clean energy and climate action will make the British people better off. Our Warm Homes Plan will deliver the biggest programme of home upgrades in generations to cut bills for millions of people and support hundreds of thousands of good jobs. Meanwhile, the electrification of transport and heating will improve air quality, particularly in urban areas. People are already embracing these benefits. Last year, nearly 1 in 5 new cars sold were electric vehicles (EVs), with average sales even higher in 2025. The number of public EV charge points is also soaring, with more than 86,000 now available across the UK, and one added every 33 minutes. We remain on track to deliver the 300,000 charge points anticipated to be necessary to meet demand by 2030. Key actions we are progressing • We will publish our Warm Homes Plan shortly, kicking off Britain’s biggest programme of home upgrades in generations. This will be backed by £13.2 billion of public investment to upgrade up to 5 million homes over this parliament to lower bills and tackle fuel poverty. The government will work with the UK’s expert public finance institutions, including the National Wealth Fund, to support delivery of the Warm Homes Plan. • The Electric Car Grant, launched in July, is making EVs cheaper by offering discounts of up to £3,750 on eligible models, with some models seeing demand increases of up to 540%. This is giving thousands more drivers access to savings of up to £1,500 a year in fuel and running costs compared to an equivalent petrol or diesel car. • We are taking action to make electric vehicle charging easier, fairer and more accessible for everyone. We will consult on empowering renters and leaseholders to install home chargepoints more easily, including requiring chargepoints in new covered car parks and cutting red tape for cross-pavement solutions. We will also work with Ofgem and industry to ensure that public EV charging costs are fair and transparent, and that tenants using landlords’ domestic chargepoints are protected from excessive charges. Ofgem will also ensure that Distribution Network Operators offer quality connection and smooth and rapid connections to all customers, including chargepoint operators. These measures will help drive the transition to zero emission vehicles and ensure everyone can share the benefits. Delivering warmer homes The Warm Homes Plan will help recipient families with the costs of solar, batteries, heat pumps and insulation to cut bills and tackle fuel poverty. It will be backed by £13.2 billion of public investment to upgrade up to 5 million homes over this parliament. Installing technologies like solar, batteries, heat pumps and insulation will help cut energy bills and protects families from fossil fuel price spikes, but we know that there have been too many barriers for those who want to upgrade. That is why the Warm Homes Plan will support families to upgrade their homes with these technologies. With clean power in the home, consumers will have lower bills and more control. Advances in consumer-scale solar, domestic batteries, heat pumps and smart meters have fundamentally transformed the opportunity for consumers to generate, store, use and manage their electricity, to cut their bills and contribute to a cheaper and more efficient energy system for everyone. As we upgrade existing homes, we will ensure new homes are built for the future with solar and clean heating installed as standard through the Future Homes Standard. Not only will this help to cut bills by hundreds of pounds per year for recipient families, but the Warm Homes Plan will support tens of thousands of good jobs, across every part of the country. Better, cleaner transport The UK’s shift to a cleaner, more efficient and better integrated transport system is well underway. Building on its position as Europe’s largest EV market in 2024, the UK is on track to make clean and affordable travel the norm by 2037 – benefitting people up and down the country. 11 We want to help more people benefit from electric vehicles that are cheaper to run. As we do so, we are determined to give people more choice about how they travel, including public transport that is more accessible, frequent and reliable and more opportunities for walking, wheeling and cycling. Air pollution is the biggest environmental risk to public health, with the health impact of long-term exposure to air pollution equivalent to between 26,000 and 38,000 deaths a year in England, in addition to avoidable ill health. 12 Exhaust and non-exhaust emissions from transport - and pollutants from fossil fuel heating - increase the risk of chronic diseases including cardiovascular diseases, lung complications and cognitive diseases. The Royal College of Physicians has estimated that air pollution in 2019 cost the UK at least £27 billion - through healthcare costs, productivity losses and reduced quality of life. 13 Zero emission vehicles are not just good for drivers - who benefit from cars that are cheaper to run and offer a smoother driving experience – but also a catalyst for economic growth. We are investing to add to the more than 86,000 public chargepoints already available in the UK, with a further 100,000 expected to be installed as a result of the Local EV Infrastructure Fund and £6 billion of private investment committed to 2030, alongside a pioneering £25 million scheme for local authorities to expand access to cheaper at-home charging. A zero-emission fleet of vans and heavy goods vehicles will be at the core of a cleaner and more efficient freight and logistics sector. We are also taking steps to help decarbonise aviation, with the SAF Mandate requiring 22% of UK jet fuel to be sustainable aviation fuel by 2040. We are also taking steps to power ships with sustainable fuels and electricity. Protecting our natural environment The climate and nature crises are fundamentally linked. Protecting and restoring nature is critical to addressing climate change and securing our environment for future generations. Our wildlife, landscapes and the ecosystems that provide our food and water must be restored and protected as we look to reverse nature's decline after years of neglect. We owe it to the British people to give them their birthright of enjoying our beautiful country. Key actions we are progressing • We are supporting farmers with up to £2.7 billion per year of funding for farming and nature recovery which includes funding for nature schemes such as tree planting and peatland restoration. This investment will help protect the ecosystems that underpin food production and contribute to meeting environmental targets on air and water quality, biodiversity, habitat restoration and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. • We are investing £816 million in tree planting through to 2030 to restore our forests which will achieve a net increase in tree canopy and woodland cover of 43,000 hectares - equivalent to 113,000 Wembley stadiums. By 2030, we will invest £85 million in improving and restoring our peatlands. • We are overhauling the way we dispose of household and workplace waste, cutting down on pollution and what we send to landfill, all while enabling nature to thrive. Moving to a more resource-efficient, circular economy will help us regenerate our natural capital and protect the environment. The waste and recycling industry estimates that we will generate £15 billion of infrastructure investment and 40,000 new jobs across Britain in activities such as re-use, repair and material reprocessing. This will have significant economic benefits. Natural capital is the foundation of resilient economic growth. Our natural assets 1 are valued at £1.64 trillion and provide £47.6 billion in annual benefits. 14 Without a flourishing ecosystem, the UK’s economic growth and stability will be subject to increasing risks. The costs of climate change in England alone are estimated to be 1% to 1.5% of GDP per year by 2045, rising to 2% to 4% by late century. 15 Our woodlands are essential for capturing and storing carbon dioxide, while providing habitats for our wildlife, supporting biodiversity and improving public health. Tree planting has a key role to play in providing attractive, healthier and resilient places to live with cleaner air and mitigation of urban heat island effects. Tree planting also makes economic sense. In 2022, UK woodlands removed 18 million tonnes of CO₂e valued at £5.1 billion, and nature, including

1 Excluding fossil fuels. trees, in urban areas helped reduce urban heatwave costs by £820 million, demonstrating the environmental and economic case for tree planting. 16 . That is why the government is investing £816m in our tree planting programme through to 2030 and is exploring a Woodland Carbon Purchase Fund to provide upfront payments for woodland carbon. England’s peatlands are our largest terrestrial carbon store. Restored peatlands support rare and diverse biodiversity, reduce wildfire risk and lessen flooding. By 2030, we will invest £85 million to restore and manage peatlands, including support for water infrastructure, planning and investigation grants, and trials of farming on higher water tables. We are committed to restoring approximately 280,000 hectares of peat by 2050. Farmers will benefit from an average of £2.3 billion a year through the Farming and Countryside Programme, including an increase in environmental land management schemes from £800 million in 2023/2024 to £2 billion by 2028/2029. Annex - Climate Change Act and carbon budgets explainer The Climate Change Act in 2008 made the UK the first country to introduce a legally binding, long-term emissions reduction target. Under the act, the UK was originally required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% on 1990 levels by 2050. In 2019, on advice of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the UK committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050 and consequently the target reduction in the act was amended to at least 100% reduction on 1990 levels. The Climate Change Act covers all major greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane and others. The UK led the way with the Climate Change Act and our legally binding decarbonisation target. This model has proved successful around the world – since the UK adopted it, 60 other countries now have their own climate legislation and there are 25 independent advisory climate councils working to support national governments on delivering their climate commitments. At least three quarters of global GDP is covered by country-level net zero commitments. This rises to over 80% when taking account of commitments made by sub-national governments. To keep the UK on a pathway to decarbonise, under the act the government is required to establish legally binding, five-year caps on greenhouse gas emissions – called carbon budgets. The act also sets requirements that the government develop policies to meet these carbon budgets. Carbon budgets are set twelve years in advance of when they start. Carbon budgets function just like a fiscal or household budget: by putting all outgoings (or policies, in the case of carbon budgets) into one place, we are able to assess progress against the limit on greenhouse gas emissions. Six carbon budgets have been set to date, covering 2008 to 2037. This Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan outlines the policies and proposals needed to deliver carbon budgets 4, 5 and 6 – from 2025 to 2037. Looking ahead, we will set Carbon Budget 7 by June 2026, in line with our statutory duties. The UK has already met, and overachieved, its first (2008-2012), second (2013-2017) and third (2018-2022) carbon budgets and is on track to meet the fourth (2023-2027). The UK is the first major economy to halve its emissions – having cut them by 54% between 1990 and 2024. 17 The act also established the CCC, an independent statutory body to advise the government and the devolved governments on setting and meeting carbon goals. The CCC advises the government on the level of each carbon budget, the respective contributions that different sectors could make, and the extent to which carbon budgets could be met through the use of permitted “flexibilities” (such as surpluses from previous carbon budgets or the purchase of good quality international carbon credits). The CCC also reports annually to Parliament on progress on emissions reductions - a powerful way of holding the government to account and providing information to both parliament and the public. Endnotes

1 UK half way to net zero (March, 2024)

2 Executive summary – World Energy Investment 2025 – Analysis - IEA 3 Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit | The future is green: The… 4 Growth and innovation in the UK’s net zero economy, CBI (February, 2025) 5 Consumer price inflation, 2022 UK - Office for National Statistics 6 Wholesale gas costs in the Ofgem price cap for a typical household paying by Direct Debit averaged £222/year for April 2021-March 2022, compared to £393/year for October-December

2025 (excluding VAT, based on gas consumption of 11.5MWh per year). 7 The 7th carbon budget, 2025, Climate Change Committee 8 DESNZ Onshore Wind Taskforce Strategy - July 2025 9 DESNZ internal analysis 10 The impact of higher energy costs on UK businesses - Office for National Statistics

11 United Kingdom: becomes largest BEV market in Europe with 19.6% market share in 2024, European Commission 12 Chemical Hazards and Poisons Report: Reducing health harms associated with air pollution., UKHSA (2022). 13 A breath of fresh air: responding to the health challenges of modern air pollution., Royal College of Physicians (2025). 14 UK natural assets, excluding fossil fuels. UK natural capital accounts: 2024, ONS 15 CO-designing the Assessment of Climate Change costs, COACCH, 2020 16 Woodland natural capital accounts, UK: 2024, ONS 17 Provisional UK greenhouse gas emissions statistics 2024 This publication is available from: www.gov.uk/desnz If you need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email alt.formats@energysecurity.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.