LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will increase grants to homeowners to remove their gas boilers and replace them with greener technology such as heat pumps as the government tries to tackle one of the biggest challenges to achieving a net zero emissions target by 2050.
The government will provide grants of 5,000 pounds ($6,859.50) for homeowners to install more environmentally friendly heating systems as part of a 450 million pound boiler scrappage programme.
"As we clean up the way we heat our homes over the next decade, we are backing our brilliant innovators to make clean technology like heat pumps as cheap to buy and run as gas boilers," Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement.
The announcement come two weeks before Britain hosts the next key round of United Nations climate talks in Glasgow, when world leaders will discuss plans to tackle climate change.
COP26, which begins on Oct. 31, aims to secure more ambitious action from the nearly 200 countries that signed the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The increase in grant money to remove gas boilers is part of a net zero strategy that will be released on Tuesday outlining how the government plans to hit the pledge to bring carbon emissions down to net zero by the middle of this century.
The government said it wanted to make heat pumps cost the same to buy and run as gas boilers by 2030, with big cost reductions of between a quarter and a half by 2025.