§ Mr. ChaytorTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will assess the Building Services Research and Information Association's work on the fitting of domestic air-conditioning systems; what assessment his Department has made of future trends in domestic air-conditioning; how such trends affect the Government's climate change policies; and if he will make a statement. [74036]
§ Mr. RaynsfordThe project on small scale air conditioning completed by the Building Services Research and Information Association last year is a valuable study into the future market potential for small scale air conditioning in the UK.
A preliminary assessment suggests that domestic emissions of carbon dioxide might increase by a number in the range 0.1 to 0.2 million tonnes of carbon in 2010 because of increased use of domestic air conditioning. This range is equivalent to between about 0.05 and 0.1% of UK CO2, emissions in 1990. We are considering this with a variety of other policy options in our analysis of responses to the recent climate change consultation paper.