The Times of London reports that Britain would have to level “huge expanses” of buildings in many cities and towns in order to comply with new carbon-emission standards:
Property is responsible for 50 per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions, according to the British Property Federation. The Government has a target for all new commercial buildings built from 2018 to be zero-carbon, but a strategy for how to deal with existing stock has yet to be established.
The Policy Exchange, the public policy think-tank, has estimated that Britain would need to spend about £400 billion on new and refurbished infrastructure by 2020 to address historic underinvestment and to kick-start transition to a low-carbon economy.
In a modern twist on the old broken-window fallacy, climate-charge alarmists are arguing, of course, that demolishing and reconstructing all those buildings would create net economic growth.