International commitments to climate change

Over a period of time between the first Earth Summit in Stockholm in 1972, and the present day, climate change and the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to mitigate it has become increasingly important as an international political issue, marked by particular events such as the publication of the Brundtland report “Our Common Future” for the UN World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987, the establishment of the International Panel for Climate Change in 1988, and the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 which produced the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). However, the most significant of these occurred in 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol was developed for the UNFCCC as an internationally legally binding commitment from participating nation states to cut their carbon emissions as an effort to stem the progress of, and mitigate against the effects of, climate change. The Kyoto Protocol entered into force in February 2005.

The implications of signing up to the Kyoto protocol for the UK were many, but can be summarised into three broad themes: firstly, that the commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions was legislated by the Climate Change Act in 2008, secondly, that the UK entered into this commitment as part of a ‘bubble’, sharing the commitment with other EU countries and binding itself to EU climate change policy and strategy, and thirdly, that the commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was organised by the Kyoto protocol in certain ways, such as the definition of different commitments for different periods of time, and the promotion of carbon ‘trading’ as a key tool (amongst others) for reducing emissions (Gupta, 2010). The first period of commitment ran from 2008-2012, and involved reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 5% from 1990 levels. The second commitment period runs from 2013-2020 and involves reducing GHG emissions by at least 18% of 1990 levels.

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5.3.3 E

uropean

nion (EU)

Being a member of the European Union impacted heavily the methods, tools, organisation and financing options available for those involved in practices relating to energy efficiency in the UK, partly because of being part of the EU ‘bubble’ of climate change and emissions reductions relating to Kyoto as described above, but also in terms of an ideological

approach. The overarching principles of market liberalisation and economic competitiveness in energy industries and networks are embodied in some key elements of EU legislation and policy such as firstly, a focus on carbon pricing and finance options, and secondly, regulating the application of State Aid – i.e. state funding - for energy efficiency projects (Pearson and Watson, 2012) by adopting the principle of open competition for public funds in providing any public service. This is intended to stimulate innovative activity in the private sector without stifling ‘competition’.

The specific aspects of EU policy contributing to and emerging alongside the Green Deal and ECO, though, are the Energy Efficiency Plan 2011, the Energy Efficiency Directive 2012 and the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive 2010. The Energy Efficiency Plan highlights the broad priorities and objectives around energy efficiency including a deliberate primary focus on improving energy efficiency in buildings – particularly space heating. It also proposes a set of particular measures through which to approach this, including

encouraging Energy Services Companies (ESCos) to act as intermediaries for finance and co- ordination of energy efficiency works, changing energy and carbon taxation and carbon pricing to make energy efficiency more feasible as an investment, making more sources of loan finance and EU grant funding available for energy efficiency projects and using improved energy efficiency to improve the economic competitiveness and energy

independence of EU member states. In this plan the entwinement of economic concerns, energy security and the focus of responses on finance and pricing are quite clear.

The Energy Efficiency Directive 2012 and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive 2010 are more prescriptive and make certain aspects of policy and practice in EU member states mandatory although there is some national and regional variation in their

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of the Energy Efficiency Plan, and includes the following stipulations in relation to domestic retrofit, that member states must address (From ECEEE, 2013):

• A long term strategy for the renovation of domestic properties, including ‘deep’

renovations (i.e. whole house retrofits).

• Setting up and providing a system of ‘high quality, cost effective’ energy audits, and

the associated training and accreditation for the auditing system.

• Removing barriers to energy efficiency, including financial ones, and establishing

effective financing facilities for energy efficiency improvements.

The Energy Performance in Buildings Directive contains more specific targets and prescriptions in relation to buildings in particular that add technical detail. It sets out an objective of having all new buildings be ‘nearly zero’ by 2020 and requires specific

components and systems to be considered in energy performance calculations of buildings, including:

• Minimum energy performance standards for appliances, systems (e.g. heating) and

certain components of buildings (e.g. walls or glazing) when they are new or retrofitted.

• Member states to set and publish minimum energy performance standards for

existing buildings when they are renovated or a significant part of them is renovated in line with the standards for components as mentioned above.

• Energy performance calculations and inspections of these systems and components

to be carried out by accredited people and lists of accredited people provided to the public.

• It sets out the conditions upon which Energy Performance Certificates are to be

issued for buildings, e.g. upon sale or transfer of the property.

It is important to note that there are other directives and elements of these directives that are extraneous to domestic retrofit, but that may influence aspects of it, such as those relating to air quality or renewable energy, but - whilst the potential interplay is

acknowledged - for the purposes of bounding this chapter, these are not examined in detail. In summary, EU policy and regulation has directly shaped certain key aspects of the

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addressing energy efficiency, the prioritisation of existing domestic buildings for energy efficiency improvements, and defining the kinds of tools and instruments that are recommended to meet these commitments. There is a clear request for an accreditation system and particular attention on the auditing and inspection – or survey – process as underpinning retrofit – as we see in the Green Deal process. There is a particular focus on financing retrofit, as well as the specific standards and conditions of using EPCs being applied to new or significantly renovated buildings. What this context does, though, is leave a significant regulatory gap where existing, not heavily renovated buildings are concerned, i.e. the kinds of retrofit promoted by Green Deal/ECO are not supported by regulation, only by financial incentive and industry accreditation (Mallaburn and Eyre, 2014). The key themes and priorities of the above policy and strategy instruments from the EU are shown in the diagram below.

138 Figure 13 EU Policy influencing domestic retrofit in the UK