The Climate Change Committee’s 2026 Progress Report has delivered a stark warning for the United Kingdom’s built environment, concluding that the country is not decarbonising buildings fast enough to meet its 2030 climate commitments.
While overall UK emissions continue to fall, the pace has slowed considerably, and the government’s current plan no longer aligns with the nation’s Paris Agreement targets.
According to the Committee, buildings represent the largest gap in the country’s path to a low-carbon future.
The findings arrive amid renewed pressure on global energy markets.
The war in Iran has driven up fossil fuel prices for the second time in four years, once again exposing how heavily the UK still relies on gas and oil for heating and transport.
Notably, the Committee’s analysis found that households using heat pumps experienced far smaller bill increases than those relying on gas boilers or petrol vehicles, reinforcing the case that electrification supports both climate goals and energy security.
Buildings emissions dipped slightly in 2025, but the Committee attributes this to high energy prices suppressing demand rather than any meaningful structural shift toward cleaner homes.
Heat pump installations remain dramatically below what is required, with growth slowing to just 7 per cent last year.
The closure of the Energy Company Obligation scheme, which once funded roughly a third of retrofit heat pump installations, has left a significant gap in support, and the Committee cautions that installation rates could decline further in 2026 without a replacement programme.
To meet its 2030 emissions target, the UK needs to nearly double its annual rate of economy-wide emissions cuts, with buildings needing to reduce emissions by close to three million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent each year through the mid-2030s.
That would require installing heat pumps roughly 30 times faster than the current rate.
Electricity pricing remains a structural barrier.
The UK continues to have one of the highest electricity-to-gas price ratios in Europe, with electricity costing more than four times as much as gas per unit for a typical household, discouraging the switch to cleaner heating technology.
The Committee argues that removing legacy policy costs from electricity bills would make heat pumps far more financially viable, particularly when paired with solar panels and flexible tariffs, an approach it estimates could save a typical household around 460 pounds annually.
Public and commercial buildings face their own challenges.
The closure of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme has eliminated the only dedicated funding stream for heat decarbonisation in public buildings, a gap the Committee estimates removes nearly five million tonnes of annual emissions abatement potential.
Skills shortages compound the problem, with fewer than 30,000 qualified heat pump installers in the UK compared to more than 130,000 gas engineers.
Industry leaders have urged the incoming government to treat the moment as an opportunity rather than a setback, pointing to existing technology and growing expertise as reasons for optimism.
With the right policy support, they argue, the UK could still turn its buildings sector from a climate liability into a driver of progress, delivering more comfortable, affordable, and resilient homes and workplaces in the process.