香港六合彩

'Making efficiency pay'

In Dr Mallaburn's聽article, , he argues that for the UK to meet its commitments under the Paris agreement, we need to 鈥榮tep up a gear鈥� on household energy efficiency. He sets out how 鈥渇inancial mechanisms鈥� 鈥� policies that exploit the value of energy efficiency 鈥撀燾ould be one way of achieving this.

Dr Mallaburn鈥檚 conclusions are based a paper* published in Energy Policy by Donal Brown and colleagues at the Universities of Sussex and Leeds and the Finnish Environment Institute that looks at how such financial mechanisms work and the lessons for policymakers. It finds that successful schemes have three basic design rules:

1. Use public subsidy to keep overall cost of capital as low as possible
2. Emphasise the 鈥渕ultiple benefits鈥� of efficiency, such as comfort and health, not just cost savings
3. Make the whole process simple, credible and easy to understand for the householder

The Green Deal, the UK鈥檚 version of a financial mechanism, managed to break all three of these rules, and, unsurprisingly, was a policy disaster, with today鈥檚 household insulation falling to 5% of their 2012 peak. As it ponders a replacement the government should take note of the author鈥檚 findings and their overall conclusion: that even the best designed schemes aren鈥檛 enough is there isn鈥檛 a coherent strategy in place.

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• View Dr Peter Mallaburn's academic profile

Image by 听蹿谤辞尘