Oil and gas exports account for 39% of Russia’s federal budget, so moving away from oil and gas heating will also undercut Putin’s ability to finance its illegal and tragic invasion of Ukraine. Just by exporting gas to the EU, Russia earns EUR 100 million a day.

Purchasing gas is not the only way European governments are throwing a lifeline to petrostates. 11 out of 27 EU countries still provide subsidies for new boilers, spending taxpayers‘ money to lock in the bloc’s dependency on gas for decades to come.

Retrofitting buildings and heating them with renewable systems would save Europe €15 billion a year within a decade and €43 billion by 2050 in gas imports.

Boilers and gas stoves are polluting the air we breathe inside and outside our homes. Air pollution represents the leading environmental health risk in Europe, being a major cause of stroke, lung cancer and premature mortality, among others. Gas and oil combustion in European homes is responsible for at least 6.4 billion a year in health costs.

Because they do not run on fossil fuels, a shift to heat pumps powered by renewable electricity would lead to a more than a tenfold decrease in NOx emissions by 2050 compared to now. This will help cut air pollution, which currently causes over 300,000 premature deaths in the EU.

Keeping homes warm is an essential expense, but more and more low- and moderate- income families won’t be able to afford heating and will be pushed inevitably into poverty. 50 million Europeans lived in energy poverty even before the current gas price crisis.

Governments have been spending billions of euros to cushion the impact of price rises via subsidies and tax breaks, further straining national economies hard-hit by raising inflation. This is not sustainable. Because gas is one of the most expensive ways to heat a home, moving away from boilers in homes while reducing taxation on electricity would shield Europe from these price increases.

Heat pumps will save consumers money and protect them from volatile fossil fuel prices increases. Given that heat pumps are more energy efficient than fossil fuel boilers or older electric systems, this translates into much lower overall cost increases also during energy price crises, especially if combined with solar panels on roofs. For example, at the current gas prices, the average household that uses a heat pump spends less on energy than those using a gas boiler, saving €860 ($900) a year. Electrified and insulated homes could give relief to low-income families and help fight energy poverty as they would cut energy costs by a third in the medium-to-long term and give them the energy security they deserve.

Burning fossil fuels such as gas, oil and coal is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions, which are wrecking our planet. Fossil fuel boilers alone are responsible for 12% of the total EU greenhouse gas emissions, as much as all car transport in the bloc.

The International Energy Agency said that a ban on the installation of new gas boilers from 2025 is required to avert the climate crisis. A recent study by the EU’s research centre suggested an EU phase-out of new fossil fuel boilers by 2025 would result in 30 million tonnes of annual CO2 savings by 2030. Heating appliances usually last longer than 20 years: if we continue installing new gas or oil boilers from 2025 onwards, we will still use fossil-fuel powered boilers in 2050, but by then we must already be climate neutral.

As they can be powered by renewable energies, heat pumps, solar thermal and district heating can be climate neutral because there is no fossil fuel burned on site or methane leaks in the gas distribution network. Widespread uptake of renewable heating is the only way to cut building emissions down to levels that will avoid catastrophic global warming.

The transition to cleaner heating technologies like heat pumps, solar thermal and district heating require installers, engineers, local staff and construction workers to bring them to every home. These are local, high-quality, sustainable jobs that will benefit communities and reduce unemployment levels.

The heat pump industry alone has created over 110,000 jobs so far. A shift to electrified and renovated buildings powered by renewable energy could boost Europe’s economy and create 1.2 million new jobs in the next decades.