Written evidence submitted by Mr Andrew Lewis (CGE0008)
Overview:
- During the Summer of 2018 a heatwave was experienced in the Chelmsford area and nationally.
- Anecdotally local people, notably the elderly, found normal life in the heat without air-conditioning quite difficult to conduct.
- Domestic air-conditioning is both expensive to purchase and to run using grid electricity.
- The UN IPCC predict 1.5C global warming by 2030
- This submission argues for advance planning which enables individuals to cope with the predicted temperature increase by:
- A VAT “holiday” on purchases of domestic air-conditioning, thus reducing the current purchase price by 20%.
- A commensurate increase in regional renewable energy investment to enable adequate supplies of electricity to be available at a reasonable price.
Analysis:
The mortality rate for England & Wales shows a significant unexplained variance year-on-year 2017-2018 from week 15 to week 19, but for the prolonged period of the 2018 heatwave shows little variation. The reason for this is unknown to the author, but one factor could be the effectiveness of the timely and accurate advice from the NHS to cope with the heat?
However at the time the author and others experienced difficulty without air-conditioning, in our case electric fans with getting on with home-based commercial work and normal life. The fans were effective at the 34C mark, but some advice seen during the Summer 2018 suggested that fans become ineffective at temperatures around 39C.
Overseas solutions observed in the United States and Far East included almost ubiquitously air-conditioning units. This is known to be expensive in both installation and running costs.
To cope with the predicted rise in Global Temperature in the UN IPCC 2018 report (http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/) at a local level, we in Chelmsford are going to need an investment in domestic air-conditioning, and an increase in reasonably priced energy capacity.
There should be investigation into the investment needed in renewable energy, such as local wind turbines, deep earth thermal drilling, and North Sea tidal power?
Furthermore to ease the burden of individual investment in domestic air-conditioning, particularly for the elderly and infirm, there should be a VAT “holiday” removing the VAT payable on such equipment to private citizens or social care homes, thus currently reducing the price by 20%?
Andrew J. Lewis MSc FLS is a computer programmer living and working in Chelmsford, Essex.