Net Zero, We Have a (Housing) Problem...

The government says it wants to build Britain’s way out of crisis. More homes, faster planning, fewer obstacles. But in its latest attempt to “streamline” the system, it has exposed a far deeper contradiction at the heart of UK climate policy. In the rush to hit near-impossible housing targets, ministers are quietly dismantling one of the few levers local government actually has to drive net zero.

Let's put some perspective on this target, forecasts and current delivery rates suggest that the government is on track to miss its 1.5 million homes target by a considerable margin, potentially by nearly half a million homes. Current projections estimate only around 840,000 new home completions will be achieved in the five years to 2028/29. Provisional figures for the period between the start of Parliament (July 9, 2024) and September 14, 2025, show an estimated 231,300 net additional homes were delivered, a rate that is over 100,000 homes below the annual run-rate required to hit the overall target.

Indicators for future supply are also declining. The number of new build starts has fallen sharply, with annualised starts more than halving between Q2 2023 and Q2 2024 according to some data sources. Planning permissions for new homes are also down, which reduces the pipeline for future construction. And this is without considering how the Autumn 2025 Budget will impact the sector and damage investor confidence further.

Reports from December 2025 indicate that the Housing Secretary plans to introduce new rules that will solidify national standards as the absolute norm, further restricting local autonomy to ensure a consistent approach to housebuilding across the country - effectively making it extremely difficult for local authorities to go beyond national building regulations and impose higher local energy efficiency or net zero standards on new housing.

The justification is familiar. Developers argue that a patchwork of local rules adds cost, uncertainty and delay. Government says it wants “cast-iron clarity”, affordability and speed, ensuring development viability. House builders, unsurprisingly, are delighted, local leaders have already (unsuccessfully) challenged this decision in the courts (https://goodhomes.org.uk/news/local-authorities-setting-the-standard-for-net-zero-homes#:~:text=Net%20Zero%20Planning%20Policy%20Hub,Target%20Emission%20Rate%20(TER).)

But the real question is not whether local standards are inconvenient. It is whether the government has thought through what this means for net zero delivery in the real world, whether a quick win now will actually set us back in the future and put local net zero targets in jeopardy.

Housing targets versus climate reality

Housing is one of the UK’s largest sources of emissions when you account for construction, energy use and long-term operational carbon. Decisions made today will lock in emissions for decades. If homes are built to minimum national standards, they will still require expensive retrofit well before 2050.

Local authorities understand this. That is why cities and regions have used planning powers to push standards higher and faster than the national baseline. London’s 2030 net zero target is not a slogan; it is backed by requirements for higher energy efficiency, on-site renewables and low-carbon heat. Other councils have followed suit, trying to close the yawning gap between national ambition and local delivery. This move again highlights the huge disconnect (or chasm) between central and local/regional governments on the net zero agenda.

Removing these powers does not make the challenge disappear. It simply shifts the burden, and the cost, into the future.

The Future Homes Standard is not the silver bullet

Ministers point to the Future Homes Standard, due in 2025, as proof that national rules will be strong enough. New homes will, they say, have 75–80% lower emissions than today and be “zero-carbon ready”.

That sounds impressive, until you look closer.

First, “zero-carbon ready” is not zero carbon. It assumes future grid decarbonisation, future heat decarbonisation and future upgrades that may or may not materialise. Second, a single national standard ignores local context: climate risk, energy infrastructure, density, fuel poverty and regional net zero timelines.

Most critically, the Future Homes Standard does nothing to help areas that have already committed, politically and publicly, to earlier targets. Councils with 2030 or 2035 goals are now being told, in effect, that they will fail. We've already seen West Suffolk Council formally push back its net zero target date for its own operations from the original 2030 to 2039, and we expect many more to follow that path.

Undermining local leadership at the worst possible moment

This move comes at a time when local government is already being sidelined in net zero policy. There is still no statutory duty for local authorities to deliver net zero. There is no stable, long-term funding framework. Fiscal rules remain unchanged. Private finance remains largely out of reach.

And now, even planning, one of the last meaningful levers, is being pulled away.

The message is stark: local authorities can declare climate emergencies, but they are not enabled to act on them.

This is not just a governance issue; it is a delivery risk. Over 80% of the UK’s emissions sit within the influence of local and regional decision-making. Weakening that influence while simultaneously piling pressure on housing numbers is a recipe for a spectacular policy failure.

The false choice between homes and climate

The government frames this as a necessary trade-off: build homes and attempt to safeguard an impossible manifesto pledge, or protect the climate. That is a false choice, and a damaging one.

High-quality, low-carbon homes are not the enemy of affordability. Energy-efficient homes cost less to run, reduce fuel poverty and ease pressure on the energy system. Weak standards simply externalise costs onto future residents, councils and taxpayers.

What is really happening here is not a clash between climate ambition and housing need, but between short-term political optics and long-term national interest. Whilst we believe that there is a need for a standardised approach, it can't be used to derail local ambitions for local authorities wishing to move forward and decarbonise. It feels as though the move is designed to increase housing developments and is going to kick the net zero can down the road.

A pattern, not an isolated decision

This policy does not exist in isolation. It sits alongside moves to weaken protections for National Parks, water down biodiversity net gain requirements and prioritise speed over sustainability in planning reform. We've even seen support removed for a simple, cheap 'swift brick' to be installed on new homes because how it impacts house building. That's where we are,

Taken together, they point to a worrying trend: climate and nature objectives are being treated as negotiable extras, not foundational principles of growth.

That is not how you build a resilient economy. It is how you lock in risk.

Net zero, we have a problem

If the government is serious about net zero, it cannot continue to ask local authorities to deliver ambitious targets while systematically removing their ability to do so. You cannot centralise standards, decentralise blame and call it progress.

Housing delivery matters. But so does climate reality. Strip away local ambition now, and the UK will pay for it later, in retrofit costs, missed targets, broken promises and a growing credibility gap between what ministers say and what policy actually delivers.

Net zero is not failing because councils are too ambitious. It is failing because ambition is being treated as an inconvenience to "build, baby, build".