Promises to improve the UK’s food security feature in the election manifestos that have been published ahead of the vote on 4 July.
The Conservatives say they can provide a future where “national, border, energy and food security are put first”. Labour says that “food security is national security”.
Food supplies have been impacted by geopolitical conflicts, extreme weather events and rising costs around the world in recent months.
The UK government recently described its food security situation as “broadly stable”, but that it is facing “longer-term risks” from climate change.
Food security is “very low on the political agenda”, a food policy expert tells Carbon Brief, adding that “politicians really don’t yet get how important and how fragile the food system is”.
Below, Carbon Brief examines the range of factors tying into the UK’s food security, how they are impacted by climate change and how some of the biggest parties discuss these issues.
- How food secure is the UK?
- What have UK political parties pledged on food security?
- How does climate change impact food security?
- How can the UK food system better prepare for shocks?
How food secure is the UK?
In a broad sense, food security refers to people in a particular country or region having enough access to food.
This is achieved when “all people, at all times” have access to enough “safe and nutritious food” to meet their needs and preferences for an “active and healthy life”, according to a definition agreed at a 1996 World Food Summit.
Sufficient “access” to food depends on a number of different factors, including costs, supply, types of food, nutritional needs and where the food comes from. These factors vary on a national and local level.
Food security in the UK is “broadly stable”, according to the government’s first food security index released last month. However, this follows a “challenging period of global supply chain shocks”.
The government says that this stability should also be taken in the context of “longer-term risk from climate change”. (See: How does climate change impact food security?)
In terms of food supply, it says that the ratio of food produced in the UK to food imported from other countries was “broadly stable” in 2022, which is the most recent data available.
The UK produced 60% of its own food and 73% of “indigenous foods” that are natively grown, such as carrots and onions. This was a drop of 1% in each case compared to 2021.
Overall, the UK imports around 40% of its food, the government notes. As the chart below shows, these imports come from a range of countries, including the Netherlands, France and Ireland.
The UK produces most of the cereals, meat, dairy and eggs eaten by people across the country. It is much more reliant on imported fruit and vegetables than any other type of food, which is a similar situation to Ireland.
The chart below outlines the “production to supply ratio” of raw foods. The figures indicate, as a percentage, how much of each of the consumed food types are produced in the UK. So, for example, the UK produces 17% of the fruit and 55% of the vegetables it consumes. In contrast, the UK produces more lamb and milk than it consumes.
Different foods are imported from different countries around the world, such as citrus fruits from Spain, tomatoes from the Netherlands and India, and rice from Pakistan.
Supplies can, therefore, be hit by extreme weather abroad. This has happened numerous times, including when cold weather in Spain and Morocco led to severe shortages of lettuce, tomatoes and other crops in the spring of 2023.
In terms of production, the balance between home-grown and imported food is “integral to UK food security” as the country’s climate is unsuitable for products such as rice, bananas and tea, the government index says.
It adds that the government is “not complacent” about food security risks, especially from global “volatility”, climate change and biodiversity loss – all of which have “intensified” in recent years, it notes.
Another key aspect of food security is affordability. Food prices have risen substantially around the world in recent years.
Carbon Brief recently spoke to a range of scientists and policy experts about the reasons for this, which include geopolitical conflicts, extreme weather events, high input costs and increased demand.
In the UK, the overall cost of food and non-alcoholic drinks increased by 25% between January 2022 to January 2024, according to the Office of National Statistics.
Around half of the respondents to a Food Standards Agency survey of the general public said they are “highly concerned” about the affordability of food. This figure doubled over the course of three years – from 26% in 2020 to 51% in 2023.
The percentage of survey respondents classified as “food insecure” stood at 25% by January 2023. Food insecurity means having limited or uncertain access to adequate amounts of food, the FSA says.
These results show that “the majority of people are worried about food prices”, the FSA chief Emily Miles said in a statement.
Prof Tim Lang, an emeritus professor of food policy at City University of London, says that food security is “very low on the political agenda” in the UK. He tells Carbon Brief:
“Politicians really don’t yet get how important and how fragile the food system is and its reliance on not just fossil fuels, but over half a century of investment into a particular model of efficiency which has all been about cutting options, cutting slackness, or perceived slackness, in the food system.”
What have UK political parties pledged on food security?
In an interactive manifesto tracker, Carbon Brief recently examined the pledges made by the UK’s main political parties ahead of the election.
Both the Conservative government and the Labour opposition have been criticised by farming and food industry groups for not going far enough in their plans on food and agriculture.
The Conservatives say they can provide a future where “national, border, energy and food security are put first”. They pledge to introduce a legally binding target to enhance the UK’s food security.
They also pledge to deliver the goal for at least half of the money spent on food in schools, hospitals and other public sector services to be used for food produced locally or to “higher environmental production standards”.
This proposal from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs defined “locally produced” as food that is grown or made in the same region, or a neighbouring county, as it is consumed.
These “higher” standards of production include organic farms or farmlands showing integrated management of natural habitats and biodiversity, soil management, pollution control and nature conservation.
Queries from Carbon Brief to the Conservative press office asking for more detail on their food security policies were left unanswered.
Labour’s manifesto says that “food security is national security” and that the party will “champion British farming whilst protecting the environment”.
Similar to the Conservative goal, the party will set a target to produce half of food purchased in the public sector either locally or in a way that is “certified to higher environmental standards”.
Carbon Brief’s request for more detail on this policy from the Labour press office also went unanswered.
A letter from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), the British Retail Consortium and other groups to the leaders of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties criticised the lack of focus on food security in their manifestos, the Guardian reported last week.
The letter said the groups “heard very little about food security” compared to defence and energy security in recent weeks, the newspaper said. It added:
“The lack of focus on food in the political narrative during the campaigns demonstrates a worrying blind spot for those that would govern us.”
The Conservative manifesto pledges to increase the UK’s farming budget by £1bn over the term of the next parliament.
Labour committed to maintaining England’s post-Brexit funding programme, the Environmental Land Management Schemes (read Carbon Brief’s Q&A here), but did not explicitly mention the UK’s agricultural budget.
NFU president Tom Bradshaw described this as “concerning”, the Daily Express reported. He told the outlet:
“Looking at the profitability of the farming sector, it’s on a knife edge.”
The Scottish National Party does not directly mention food security in its manifesto. It discusses agricultural funding, saying that the devolved Scottish government has received “no commitment from Westminster on any future funding for farming after 2025”.
The SNP calls for the UK government to increase farm funding and provide “certainty through multi-annual funding frameworks”.
The Liberal Democrats has pledged to introduce a “holistic and comprehensive national food strategy to ensure food security” alongside tackling food prices, ending food poverty and improving health and nutrition.
The party also promises to put an extra £1bn per year towards England’s Environmental Land Management Schemes.
How does climate change impact food security?
Extreme weather can harm food supply and production, therefore impacting food security.
Heatwaves destroy crops and endanger agricultural workers. Heavy rainfall floods fields. Drought reduces crop yields. Climate change is a key driver in the increasing frequency and severity of these extremes.
Farmers in the UK have recently been affected by “soggy and turbulent weather”, Bloomberg reported.
The UK had its eighth-wettest winter on record last year and a wetter-than-normal spring. Carbon Brief analysis shows that UK winters have become 1C warmer and 15% wetter in the past century.
Earlier this year, the Guardian reported that there could be food shortages and price rises due to this extreme weather.
This could lead to more shipments from abroad, but the newspaper said that “similarly wet conditions in European countries such as France and Germany, as well as drought in Morocco, could mean there is less food to import”.
In 2022, the heatwave which saw UK temperatures hit 40C for the first time pushed farmers “closer to the brink”, the Daily Telegraph reported at the time.
The hot, dry weather in July left farmers “watering crops which wouldn’t normally need watering such as sugar beet and maize”, the newspaper said, while “industry chiefs warned that very hot and sunny days were starting to stress apple trees and scorch fruit”.
It added that “fears that high temperatures will damage this year’s harvest in Britain, Europe and North America sent crop prices 7% higher last week, the biggest jump since the early days of the conflict in Ukraine”.
A rapid attribution analysis suggested that human-caused climate change had made the UK’s record-breaking heatwave at least 10 times more likely. A separate study found that climate change had made the droughts across the northern hemisphere in 2022 at least 20 times more likely.
Speaking to Carbon Brief for a recent article, Prof Andy Challinor, a professor of climate impacts at the University of Leeds, said that “climate change is beginning to outpace us because it is interacting with our complex interrelated economic and food systems”.
He added that the way food systems have been set up “has huge implications for stability and resilience – or lack thereof”.
Lang tells Carbon Brief that there is some “lip service [and] some good initiatives” to address risks from climate change and biodiversity loss, but he adds:
“There are great things going on, but they are small compared to the enormous change that needs to happen.”
How can the UK food system better prepare for shocks?
Lang says the next UK government has a “horrendous task” in tackling issues such as extreme weather, global shocks and other impacts negatively affecting food production.
He has been working on a report about UK food security and preparing for food shocks for the National Preparedness Commission, an independent body that promotes policies to prepare the UK for shocks. This is due to be released by the end of this summer.
Lang believes that a system change is necessary to deal with the range of different shocks and to tackle the food system’s contribution to climate change.
The global food system is responsible for around one-third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Within this, as much as half of those emissions come from rotted or otherwise wasted food, a 2023 study found.
In the UK, 12% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. Livestock is by far the biggest contributor to these emissions, as shown in the chart below.
Around 70% of the UK’s land is used for agriculture. Globally, half of all liveable land is used for agriculture.
England’s National Food Strategy, published a few years ago, called for a rural land-use strategy to figure out the best ways to use land for nature, carbon sequestration, agriculture and other purposes.
The UK is due to release its delayed land-use report for England later this year. Before the general election was called, a conservative peer said the report would be published before the parliament’s summer recess.
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs declined to comment on the current status of this report as it is an issue for the next government.
Food security should be a “central tenet” of this framework, the UK parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee said in December 2023.
The chart below highlights how land is currently allocated in the UK (left) and how much overseas land is used to produce food for the UK (right).
On next steps, Lang says that he would like to see a number of actions from the next government on food security. He tells Carbon Brief:
“We need a national council of food policy. We need to have high priority to agri-food reform. We have got to actually start a programme of educating and teaching people better how to do things. We have got to get a grip on the runaway food manufacturing industry.
“At the moment, the politics of food is just blame. And blame doesn’t get political change.”
The post Q&A: The state of the UK’s ‘food security’ in a fast-warming world appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: The state of the UK’s ‘food security’ in a fast-warming world
Climate Change
DeBriefed 30 January 2026: Fire and ice; US formally exits Paris; Climate image faux pas
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Fire and ice
OZ HEAT: The ongoing heatwave in Australia reached record-high temperatures of almost 50C earlier this week, while authorities “urged caution as three forest fires burned out of control”, reported the Associated Press. Bloomberg said the Australian Open tennis tournament “rescheduled matches and activated extreme-heat protocols”. The Guardian reported that “the climate crisis has increased the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, including heatwaves and bushfires”.
WINTER STORM: Meanwhile, a severe winter storm swept across the south and east of the US and parts of Canada, causing “mass power outages and the cancellation of thousands of flights”, reported the Financial Times. More than 870,000 people across the country were without power and at least seven people died, according to BBC News.
COLD QUESTIONED: As the storm approached, climate-sceptic US president Donald Trump took to social media to ask facetiously: “Whatever happened to global warming???”, according to the Associated Press. There is currently significant debate among scientists about whether human-caused climate change is driving record cold extremes, as Carbon Brief has previously explained.
Around the world
- US EXIT: The US has formally left the Paris Agreement for the second time, one year after Trump announced the intention to exit, according to the Guardian. The New York Times reported that the US is “the only country in the world to abandon the international commitment to slow global warming”.
- WEAK PROPOSAL: Trump officials have delayed the repeal of the “endangerment finding” – a legal opinion that underpins federal climate rules in the US – due to “concerns the proposal is too weak to withstand a court challenge”, according to the Washington Post.
- DISCRIMINATION: A court in the Hague has ruled that the Dutch government “discriminated against people in one of its most vulnerable territories” by not helping them to adapt to climate change, reported the Guardian. The court ordered the Dutch government to set binding targets within 18 months to cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, according to the Associated Press.
- WIND PACT: 10 European countries have agreed a “landmark pact” to “accelerate the rollout of offshore windfarms in the 2030s and build a power grid in the North Sea”, according to the Guardian.
- TRADE DEAL: India and the EU have agreed on the “mother of all trade deals”, which will save up to €4bn in import duty, reported the Hindustan Times. Reuters quoted EU officials saying that the landmark trade deal “will not trigger any changes” to the bloc’s carbon border adjustment mechanism.
- ‘TWO-TIER SYSTEM’: COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago believes that global cooperation should move to a “two-speed system, where new coalitions lead fast, practical action alongside the slower, consensus-based decision-making of the UN process”, according to a letter published on Tuesday, reported Climate Home News.
$2.3tn
The amount invested in “green tech” globally in 2025, marking a new record high, according to Bloomberg.
Latest climate research
- Including carbon emissions from permafrost thaw and fires reduces the remaining carbon budget for limiting warming to 1.5C by 25% | Communications Earth & Environment
- The global population exposed to extreme heat conditions is projected to nearly double if temperatures reach 2C | Nature Sustainability
- Polar bears in Svalbard – the fastest-warming region on Earth – are in better condition than they were a generation ago, as melting sea ice makes seal pups easier to reach | Scientific Reports
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) overtook standard petrol cars in the EU for the first time in December 2025, according to new figures released by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) and covered by Carbon Brief. Registrations of “pure” battery EVs reached 217,898 – up 51% year-on-year from December 2024. Meanwhile, sales of standard petrol cars in the bloc fell 19% year-on-year, from 267,834 in December 2024 to 216,492 in December 2025, according to the analysis.
Spotlight
Looking at climate visuals
Carbon Brief’s Ayesha Tandon recently chaired a panel discussion at the launch of a new book focused on the impact of images used by the media to depict climate change.
When asked to describe an image that represents climate change, many people think of polar bears on melting ice or devastating droughts.
But do these common images – often repeated in the media – risk making climate change feel like a far-away problem from people in the global north? And could they perpetuate harmful stereotypes?
These are some of the questions addressed in a new book by Prof Saffron O’Neill, who researches the visual communication of climate change at the University of Exeter.
“The Visual Life of Climate Change” examines the impact of common images used to depict climate change – and how the use of different visuals might help to effect change.
At a launch event for her book in London, a panel of experts – moderated by Carbon Brief’s Ayesha Tandon – discussed some of the takeaways from the book and the “dos and don’ts” of climate imagery.
Power of an image
“This book is about what kind of work images are doing in the world, who has the power and whose voices are being marginalised,” O’Neill told the gathering of journalists and scientists assembled at the Frontline Club in central London for the launch event.
O’Neill opened by presenting a series of climate imagery case studies from her book. This included several examples of images that could be viewed as “disempowering”.
For example, to visualise climate change in small island nations, such as Tuvalu or Fiji, O’Neill said that photographers often “fly in” to capture images of “small children being vulnerable”. She lamented that this narrative “misses the stories about countries like Tuvalu that are really international leaders in climate policy”.
Similarly, images of power-plant smoke stacks, often used in online climate media articles, almost always omit the people that live alongside them, “breathing their pollution”, she said.
During the panel discussion that followed, panellist Dr James Painter – a research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and senior teaching associate at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute – highlighted his work on heatwave imagery in the media.
Painter said that “the UK was egregious for its ‘fun in the sun’ imagery” during dangerous heatwaves.
He highlighted a series of images in the Daily Mail in July 2019 depicting people enjoying themselves on beaches or in fountains during an intense heatwave – even as the text of the piece spoke to the negative health impacts of the heatwave.
In contrast, he said his analysis of Indian media revealed “not one single image of ‘fun in the sun’”.
Meanwhile, climate journalist Katherine Dunn asked: “Are we still using and abusing the polar bear?”. O’Neill suggested that polar bear images “are distant in time and space to many people”, but can still be “super engaging” to others – for example, younger audiences.
Panellist Dr Rebecca Swift – senior vice president of creative at Getty images – identified AI-generated images as “the biggest threat that we, in this space, are all having to fight against now”. She expressed concern that we may need to “prove” that images are “actually real”.
However, she argued that AI will not “win” because, “in the end, authentic images, real stories and real people are what we react to”.
When asked if we expect too much from images, O’Neill argued “we can never pin down a social change to one image, but what we can say is that images both shape and reflect the societies that we live in”. She added:
“I don’t think we can ask photos to do the work that we need to do as a society, but they certainly both shape and show us where the future may lie.”
Watch, read, listen
UNSTOPPABLE WILDFIRES: “Funding cuts, conspiracy theories and ‘powder keg’ pine plantations” are making Patagonia’s wildfires “almost impossible to stop”, said the Guardian.
AUDIO SURVEY: Sverige Radio has published “the world’s, probably, longest audio survey” – a six-hour podcast featuring more than 200 people sharing their questions around climate change.
UNDERSTAND CBAM: European thinktank Bruegel released a podcast “all about” the EU’s carbon adjustment border mechanism, which came into force on 1 January.
Coming up
- 1 February: Costa Rican general election
- 3 February: UN Environment Programme Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator report launch, Online
- 2-8 February: Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) 12th plenary, Manchester, UK
Pick of the jobs
- Climate Central, climate data scientist | Salary: $85,000-$92,000. Location: Remote (US)
- UN office to the African Union, environmental affairs officer | Salary: Unknown. Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
- Google Deepmind, research scientist in biosphere models | Salary: Unknown. Location: Zurich, Switzerland
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 30 January 2026: Fire and ice; US formally exits Paris; Climate image faux pas appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 30 January 2026: Fire and ice; US formally exits Paris; Climate image faux pas
Electric heat pumps are set to play a key role in the UK’s climate strategy, as well as cutting the nation’s reliance on imported fossil fuels.
Heat pumps took centre-stage in the UK government’s recent “warm homes plan”, which said that they could also help cut household energy bills by “hundreds of pounds” a year.
Similarly, innovation agency Nesta estimates that typical households could cut their annual energy bills nearly £300 a year, by switching from a gas boiler to a heat pump.
Yet there has been widespread media coverage in the Times, Sunday Times, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph and elsewhere of a report claiming that heat pumps are “more expensive” to run.
The report is from the Green Britain Foundation set up by Dale Vince, owner of energy firm Ecotricity, who campaigns against heat pumps and invests in “green gas” as an alternative.
One expert tells Carbon Brief that Vince’s report is based on “flimsy data”, while another says that it “combines a series of worst-case assumptions to present an unduly pessimistic picture”.
This factcheck explains how heat pumps can cut bills, what the latest data shows about potential savings and how this information was left out of the report from Vince’s foundation.
How heat pumps can cut bills
Heat pumps use electricity to move heat – most commonly from outside air – to the inside of a building, in a process that is similar to the way that a fridge keeps its contents cold.
This means that they are highly efficient, adding three or four units of heat to the house for each unit of electricity used. In contrast, a gas boiler will always supply less than one unit of heat from each unit of gas that it burns, because some of the energy is lost during combustion.
This means that heat pumps can keep buildings warm while using three, four or even five times less energy than a gas boiler. This cuts fossil-fuel imports, reducing demand for gas by at least two-fifths, even in the unlikely scenario that all of the electricity they need is gas-fired.
Since UK electricity supplies are now the cleanest they have ever been, heat pumps also cut the carbon emissions associated with staying warm by around 85%, relative to a gas boiler.
Heat pumps are, therefore, the “central” technology for cutting carbon emissions from buildings.
While heat pumps cost more to install than gas boilers, the UK government’s recent “warm homes plan” says that they can help cut energy bills by “hundreds of pounds” per year.
Similarly, Nesta published analysis showing that a typical home could cut its annual energy bill by £280, if it replaces a gas boiler with a heat pump, as shown in the figure below.
Nesta and the government plan say that significantly larger savings are possible if heat pumps are combined with other clean-energy technologies, such as solar and batteries.
Both the government and Nesta’s estimates of bill savings from switching to a heat pump rely on relatively conservative assumptions.
Specifically, the government assumes that a heat pump will deliver 2.8 units of heat for each unit of electricity, on average. This is known as the “seasonal coefficient of performance” (SCoP).
This figure is taken from the government-backed “electrification of heat” trial, which ran during 2020-2022 and showed that heat pumps are suitable for all building types in the UK.
(The Green Britain Foundation report and Vince’s quotes in related coverage repeat a number of heat pump myths, such as the idea that they do not perform well in older properties and require high levels of insulation.)
Nesta assumes a slightly higher SCoP of 3.0, says Madeleine Gabriel, the organisation’s director of sustainable future. (See below for more on what the latest data says about SCoP in recent installations.)
Both the government and Nesta assume that a home with a heat pump would disconnect from the gas grid, meaning that it would no longer need to pay the daily “standing charge” for gas. This currently amounts to a saving of around £130 per year.
Finally, they both consider the impact of a home with a heat pump using a “smart tariff”, where the price of electricity varies according to the time of day.
Such tariffs are now widely available from a variety of energy suppliers and many have been designed specifically for homes that have a heat pump.
Such tariffs significantly reduce the average price for a unit of electricity. Government survey data suggests that around half of heat-pump owners already use such tariffs.
This is important because on the standard rates under the price cap set by energy regulator Ofgem, each unit of electricity costs more than four times as much as a unit of gas.
The ratio between electricity and gas prices is a key determinant of the size and potential for running-cost savings with a heat pump. Countries with a lower electricity-to-gas price ratio consistently see much higher rates of heat-pump adoption.
(Decisions taken by the UK government in its 2025 budget mean that the electricity-to-gas ratio will fall from April, but current forecasts suggest it will remain above four-to-one.)
In contrast, Vince’s report assumes that gas boilers are 90% efficient, whereas data from real homes suggests 85% is more typical. It also assumes that homes with heat pumps remain on the gas grid, paying the standing charge, as well as using only a standard electricity tariff.
Prof Jan Rosenow, energy programme leader at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, tells Carbon Brief that Vince’s report uses “worst-case assumptions”. He says:
“This report cherry-picks assumptions to reach a predetermined conclusion. Most notably, it assumes a gas boiler efficiency of 90%, which is significantly higher than real-world performance…Taken together, the analysis combines a series of worst-case assumptions to present an unduly pessimistic picture.”
Similarly, Gabriel tells Carbon Brief that Vince’s report is based on “flimsy data”. She explains:
“Dale Vince has drawn some very strong conclusions about heat pumps from quite flimsy data. Like Dale, we’d also like to see electricity prices come down relative to gas, but we estimate that, from April, even a moderately efficient heat pump on a standard tariff will be cheaper to run than a gas boiler. Paired with a time-of-use tariff, a heat pump could save £280 versus a boiler and adding solar panels and a battery could triple those savings.”
What the latest data shows about bill savings
The efficiency of heat-pump installations is another key factor in the potential bill savings they can deliver and, here, both the government and Vince’s report take a conservative approach.
They rely on the “electrification of heat” trial data to use an efficiency (SCoP) of 2.8 for heat pumps. However, Rosenow says that recent evidence shows that “substantially higher efficiencies are routinely available”, as shown in the figure below.
Detailed, real-time data on hundreds of heat pump systems around the UK is available via the website Heat Pump Monitor, where the average efficiency – a SCoP of 3.9 – is much higher.
Homes with such efficient heat-pump installations would see even larger bill savings than suggested by the government and Nesta estimates.
Academic research suggests that there are simple and easy-to-implement reasons why these systems achieve much higher efficiency levels than in the electrification of heat trial.
Specifically, it shows that many of the systems in the trial have poor software settings, which means they do not operate as efficiently as their heat pump hardware is capable of doing.
The research suggests that heat pump installations in the UK have been getting more and more efficient over time, as engineers become increasingly familiar with the technology.
It indicates that recently installed heat pumps are 64% more efficient than those in early trials.
Notably, the Green Britain Foundation report only refers to the trial data from the electrification of heat study carried out in 2020-22 and the even earlier “renewable heat premium package” (RHPP). This makes a huge difference to the estimated running costs of a heat pump.
Carbon Brief analysis suggests that a typical household could cut its annual energy bills by nearly £200 with a heat pump – even on a standard electricity tariff – if the system has a SCoP of 3.9.
The savings would be even larger on a smart heat-pump tariff.
In contrast, based on the oldest efficiency figures mentioned in the Green Britain Foundation report, a heat pump could increase annual household bills by as much as £200 on a standard tariff.
To support its conclusions, the report also includes the results of a survey of 1,001 heat pump owners, which, among other things, is at odds with government survey data. The report says “66% of respondents report that their homes are more expensive to heat than the previous system”.
There are several reasons to treat these findings with caution. The survey was carried out in July 2025 and some 45% of the heat pumps involved were installed between 2021-23.
This is a period during which energy prices surged as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting global energy crisis. Energy bills remain elevated as a result of high gas prices.
The wording of the survey question asks if homes are “more or less expensive to heat than with your previous system” – but makes no mention of these price rises.
The question does not ask homeowners if their bills are higher today, with a heat pump, than they would have been with the household’s previous heating system.
If respondents interpreted the question as asking whether their bills have gone up or down since their heat pump was installed, then their answers will be confounded by the rise in prices overall.
There are a number of other seemingly contradictory aspects of the survey that raise questions about its findings and the strong conclusions in the media coverage of the report.
For example, while only 15% of respondents say it is cheaper to heat their home with a heat pump, 49% say that one of the top three advantages of the system is saving money on energy bills.
In addition, 57% of respondents say they still have a boiler, even though 67% say they received government subsidies for their heat-pump installation. It is a requirement of the government’s boiler upgrade scheme (BUS) grants that homeowners completely remove their boiler.
The government’s own survey of BUS recipients finds that only 13% of respondents say their bills have gone up, whereas 37% say their bills have gone down, another 13% say they have stayed the same and 8% thought that it was too early to say.
The post Factcheck: What it really costs to heat a home in the UK with a heat pump appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Factcheck: What it really costs to heat a home in the UK with a heat pump
The European Union and the UK are not on track to meet their 2030 offshore wind targets.
At the same time, Chinese wind-turbine manufacturers – who account for more than half of global wind-turbine capacity – are looking to grow their footprint in the European market, where their presence is currently tiny.
To some, the solution seems clear: allowing Chinese manufacturers to invest in Europe could boost competition, alleviate supply chain bottlenecks and lower costs – not to mention bring climate targets within reach.
But the possibility of a growing role for Chinese wind-turbine manufacturers in the European market has sparked heated debate among European policymakers and industry participants.
In 2024, three of China’s top wind-turbine companies accounted for less than 1% of Europe’s installed wind capacity.
But their focus is increasingly shifting to the continent, which some are concerned could hollow out the one clean-energy industry in which Europe is still competitive.
Competition between European and Chinese manufacturers would be “unfair”, according to critics, because the discounts Chinese firms are offering seem to be at least in part due to state subsidies.
In a recent report published by the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, we explore whether Chinese wind turbine companies are competitive in Europe and the real risks and benefits of Chinese participation in European offshore wind markets.
Our findings build on interviews with policymakers and industry experts, who have been granted anonymity to allow for candid discussion.
Cost advantages are less clear-cut than they appear
China ranks first for many of the global statistics for offshore wind. It has been by far the largest offshore wind market in the world for several years running.
China had 47 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind installed, as of September 2025, more than all other countries combined. Furthermore, China also dominates several key fields critical to offshore wind globally, ranging from permanent magnets to offshore installation vessels.
This stands in firm contrast to Europe – where offshore development has experienced several years of slow growth – and the US, which faces an almost complete halt in new development under the Trump administration.
As happened before in solar and batteries, China’s offshore wind industry scale-up has brought about stunning declines in installation costs.
However, this cost advantage is not as straightforward as these headline numbers would suggest. Despite the vast difference in capacity cost, the electricity produced by Chinese offshore wind farms is only 30% cheaper.
A key reason for this is the lower overall capacity factor of China’s offshore wind sector, referring to the actual output of windfarms in China, compared to their maximum possible output. This can be partly explained by lower wind speeds at China’s offshore sites, but could also relate to lower performance of Chinese turbines, as well as power transmission issues.
Lower production costs in China also would not necessarily translate to the European market, as Chinese cost advantages would be partly offset by transport costs, as well as higher insurance and financing premiums.
Greater localisation of turbine production could mitigate against some of these premiums, but would be offset by higher input costs in Europe.
Nonetheless, as more European governments add local content requirements, Chinese manufacturers have announced plans to set up European factories for turbine blades and towers, with core components shipped from China.
These factories could also be costlier to finance than those back home if financing for investments also comes from Europe, further reducing the cost advantage enjoyed by China’s domestic offshore-energy infrastructure.
Issues beyond costs and bottlenecks
European offshore wind development plans have faced a number of hurdles, including rising costs, slow permitting processes, inefficient auction designs, lengthy grid connection times and limited availability of parts, port capacity and installation vessels.
The small number of players in Europe’s offshore wind sector is seen as part of the problem, according to our interviews.
Currently, there are only three major wind turbine manufacturers in the European offshore wind market: Vestas, Siemens Gamesa and GE Vernova.
The latter announced in 2024 that it is downsizing its offshore wind business and has not taken new offshore orders, although it remains active in onshore wind projects. This reduces competition and could hinder efforts to bring down the cost of offshore wind projects.
Bottlenecks, inadequate industry capacity and lack of competition cannot in themselves explain the current European predicament. Developers we interviewed also note that offshore wind auctions with price caps and stringent contractual terms, designed with an expectation of falling costs, have also been part of the problem.
When these auctions have failed – as in the UK in 2023 and Germany in 2025 – this led to capacity contraction, higher costs and industry consolidation, which have only made it more difficult to reach policy targets, according to a report by European offshore wind company Ørsted.
Even with improved European auction design, it may take years for Europe’s offshore wind installation numbers to recover. With or without Chinese participation, it will also take time to build domestic manufacturing bases and installation vessels.
Pathways to Chinese involvement
Meanwhile, Chinese developers benefit from a large and growing domestic market in China. At the same time, however, intense competition on price and quality is spurring them to seek opportunities overseas.
Throughout Europe’s supply chain, Chinese components and services are already helping alleviate shortages and bottlenecks.
Still, our report found there are divergent views on whether a greater Chinese presence in Europe’s wind markets represents a threat or an opportunity – or both.
Policymakers are expected to continue to emphasise concerns about technology dependence and cybersecurity risks, leading to more domestic content requirements and increased scrutiny of Chinese deals.
The case of the 300 megawatt (MW) Luxcara project in Germany highlights the difficulties for Chinese market entry. Chinese manufacturer Mingyang was initially selected by the project owner in 2024, but was later replaced by Siemens-Gamesa, reportedly due to concerns about security and political risks.
The recent announcement of a deal between the UK’s Octopus Energy and Mingyang may illustrate an emerging model. According to Octopus, Mingyang will supply the physical equipment, while Octopus will supply the software and manage the turbines.
Mingyang will still need access to operational data to support ongoing maintenance, but this can be provided periodically by Octopus without compromising security, the energy company told us.
Meanwhile, following policy signals such as the EU’s new pricing mechanism for electric vehicle imports from China, it seems likely that policymakers will continue to encourage Chinese players to establish production bases in Europe and to require technology licensing or technology transfer in exchange for market access. This would amount to applying the Chinese industrial development model in Europe.
This could allow for technological learning in Europe. In China, the largest players have deployed advanced automated manufacturing lines, including robotic blade bonding, modular stator assembly and real-time quality monitoring – although this may have implications for job creation, a stated aim in Europe’s clean-energy policy.
Despite pointing to some advantages, our interviews suggest that Chinese participation in Europe’s offshore wind market is not a panacea.
Its low costs are unlikely to be transferrable to the European context. But greater Chinese participation in auctions and in manufacturing, with local content requirements and other guardrails, could help spur competition in Europe.
At the same time, our report suggests that the focus on China distracts from deeper issues. Without a growing domestic market, it may be difficult for European players to reduce manufacturing costs and upgrade production, with or without Chinese partners.
Ultimately, industry participants tell us that the greatest determinant of success in Europe’s offshore wind market will be consistent policy support, rather than a decision to allow – or to block – Chinese participation.
The post Experts: Will Chinese wind power help or hinder Europe’s climate goals? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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