Comments on claims EVs and heat pumps deliver “no proven carbon savings”

Please see below comments on analysis from Queen Mary University of London which claims that electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps deliver 'no proven carbon savings' in the UK [1]: 

Prof Jan Rosenow, Leader of the Energy Programme and Professor of Energy and Climate Policy at the Environmental Change Institute, and Jackson Senior Research Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford: "Saying EVs and heat pumps don’t reduce emissions in the UK is not a serious reading of the evidence. Even if electricity were generated entirely from gas, they would still emit less than petrol cars and gas boilers because of basic thermodynamics. In reality, our grid is getting cleaner every year. Delaying electrification on the basis of flawed assumptions would be a serious policy mistake. It is difficult to understand how modelling built on such assumptions ever made it through peer review."

Adam Bell, Partner at Stonehaven: "The authors of this paper have fundamentally misunderstood how the electricity system works, and in doing so have over-exaggerated the amount of storage required to run the system by at least an order of magnitude. This has led them to model far too much gas use." 

Jess Ralston, Energy Analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU): "Electric vehicles and heat pumps are key net zero technologies for lowering gas demand - the only way in which we'll achieve energy independence from volatile gas prices set by the likes of Putin and Trump as the North Sea continues its inevitable decline."

ENDS

Notes to editors: 

1. Queen Mary University of London: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/2026/science-and-engineering/se/sanity-checkwarns-evs-and-heat-pumps-deliver-no-proven-carbon-savings-ahead-of-2030-clean-power-target.html 

For more information or for interview requests:

George Smeeton, Head of Communications, ECIU, Tel: 07894 571 153, email: george.smeeton@eciu.net