Regulatory barriers to climate action: Evidence from Conservation Areas in England

Thiemo Fetzer

No 17975, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Preserving heritage is an important part of maintaining collective identity for future generations. Yet, culturally defined notions of "heritage'' or "character'', in the context of the climate crisis, may be a barrier to individual and collective climate action to tackle a much more existential threat to those future generations. Studying data for more than half of the English housing stock, I show that conservation area status – a rather fluffy area-based designation that intends to protect the unique character of a neighborhood – not to be confused with preservation of historic buildings – in England may be responsible for up to 3.2 million tons of avoidable CO2 emissions annually. Using a suite of micro-econometric methods and alternative identification strategies ranging from saturated specifications, border discontinuity, matching estimation and an instrumental variables approach leveraging World War II wartime destruction in London – I show that properties in conservation areas have a notable worse energy efficiency; experience lower investment in retrofitting and consume notably higher levels of energy owing to poor energy efficiency. Effect sizes are very consistent comparing engineering based energy consumption estimates with actual consumption data. Effects can be directly attributed to planning requirements for otherwise permitted development that only apply to properties by virtue of them being located inside a conservation area.

JEL-codes: N74 Q54 Q55 R14 R48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP17975 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: Regulatory Barriers to Climate Action: Evidence from Conservation Areas in England (2023)
Working Paper: Regulatory barriers to climate action: evidence from conservation areas in England (2023)
Working Paper: Regulatory barriers to climate action: Evidence from Conservation Areas in England (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:17975

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP17975

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().