Embrace local solutions to meet UK net-zero targets, MPs and peers urge

theguardian.com:

The UK will need to embrace innovative, community-based solutions to environmental and energy problems if it is to have any hope of meeting looming net-zero deadlines, a cross-party group of MPs and peers has recommended.

A report by the all-party group on a green new deal argues for a combination of robust, top-down policies on green issues including localised power generation, food and transport schemes. Recommendations include a mortgage penalty for landlords who let energy-inefficient homes, and also real community decision-making, notably on power schemes.

Highlighting projects such as one in Gwynedd, north Wales, in which locals buy electricity from a community hydroplant at below grid prices, with a further discount for off-peak use, they recommend changes to regulations to incentivise such schemes.

As part of the “energy club” in Bethesda, homes pay as little as 8p per kW/h overnight, with bills staying lower than grid prices if they do not cumulatively use more energy than the local plant produces, with savings from power being generated nearby.

One of the report’s recommendations is for a so-called right of local supply, as seen in some other European countries, which would incentivise such systems through improved access to the grid, and assistance with providing power to local people.

Such changes are vital, the report said, if the UK is to meet the first of its major net zero targets, to reduce carbon emissions by 68% below 1990 levels by 2030.

The report, based on a series of evidence sessions, including with academics, energy experts and devolved mayors, calls for ambitious centralised targets and incentives alongside localism, citing rules such as those in France obliging new buildings to have solar or natural