The Liberal Democrat annual Conference has backed proposals to make Britain carbon neutral by 2050, headed by a commitment  to introducing ‘green mortgages’ to enable people to make their homes more energy efficient.

The full plans are contained in a 47 page environmental policy report, Zero Carbon Britain*, released at the end of last month.

In a motion overwhelmingly supported on 17 September , the conference backed a plan to provide new incentives for renewables and micro-generation through appropriate guaranteed prices, and to boost flood defences and other changes to respond to climate change, including a new UK national adaptation plan, to enable more sustainable housing expansion in flood threatened areas.

More detailed  ideas backed include  requiring all new homes to be built to the GreenHouse standard no later than 2011 The LibDems say this is the best known standard for building homes that require no fossil fuels for their space heating.

They also pledge to bring forward environmentally sustainable technologies by setting a target for 30% of the UK’s electricity to come from clean, non-carbon emitting sources by 2020, rising to 100% by 2050, providing new incentives for renewable energy sources and small-scale micro-generation through guaranteed prices (‘feed-in tariffs’), and provison of new incentives for renewable heat technologies.

The Liberal Democrats’ ten-point plan to tackle climate change also includes a pledge to reform Whitehall to ensure all departments take climate change seriously.

SB’s report on the LibDem fringe meetings covering housing and sustainability is on page 10.
* Policy Paper 82, Zero-Carbon Britain – Taking a Global Lead

 http://www.libdems.org.uk/media/documents/policies/zero%20carbon.pdf