Schemes to encourage e-bikes and electric boilers to launch this month

Monday 09 January 2023

New Government schemes to encourage islanders to swap their car for an e-bike and their fossil fuel-burning boiler for an electric one will be launched in the coming days.

Although the details of the incentive schemes are yet to be revealed, the Assistant Minister with responsibility for energy and climate change, Deputy Hilary Jeune, said their launch would be one of the first phases of the Government’s Carbon Neutral Roadmap, which was approved by the last Assembly in April.

Overall, the Government has set a target of Jersey emitting no more carbon than it can capture by 2050, in line with an international target set in Paris in 2015.

Deputy Jeune previewed the schemes as the island marked the fact that last year was the hottest on record, with a dark line painted on a mural at the Waterfront.

The artwork, designed by Ian Rolls, is a series of 129 vertical lines, each representing a year since local meteorological recordings began in 1894.

The colour of each line represents the average annual temperature, with 2022 being the darkest line yet.

Pictured: Assistant Sustainability and Climate Change Engagement Officer Abbie Syvret paints the 2022 stripe on Ian Rolls' Waterfront mural.

Deputy Jeune said that individual islanders had an important role to play in reducing the Island’s carbon footprint, as well as the Government. 

Businesses – and, in particular, the island’s global finance industry – also had a key part, she added.

The Carbon Neutral Roadmap proposes firm schemes to reduce emissions over the next four years, paid for from a £23m Climate Emergency Fund, which itself is funded by fuel duty.

It also proposes a ban on all new fossil fuel-burning vehicles from 2030.

Pictured: Deputy Hilary Jeune, who has political responsibility for energy and climate change.

Beyond 2026, the Roadmap ‘paints a picture’ of how the island might decarbonise, but leaves the details and funding to future Assemblies and bodies.

Deputy Jeune has recently lodged an official proposition asking the Assembly to approve one of those structures: a Climate Council, which will publish a progress report each four-year political term.