| By Olivia Rudgard How to persuade people to get a heat pump is a thorny problem for governments and companies around the world. But the Heat Pump Summit in Oxford this week opened with an especially British barrier: the local government’s planning department. A local homeowner spent 18 months to get permission from local government for a heat pump to be installed in his house. He was blocked first by concerns about the visual impact of the external unit, and later about noise. “Eventually, he just gave up and installed a new bathroom instead,” said Anna Railton, an Oxford city councilor with local responsibility for net zero who assisted the homeowner. It’s not the only case of frustration and red tape Railton has seen, she said. The UK has generally been slower to install heat pumps than its European neighbors, with just under 100,000 new units going in last year compared to more than half a million in France, a country with a similar sized population. But there are some green shoots. The UK was the only country in Europe where heat pump sales grew significantly last year from the year before, with a 63% rise compared to 2023, while sales in 14 European countries fell by an average of 21%. Whether that continues depends partly on a long-awaited strategy for the decarbonization of Britain’s buildings. That document, the Warm Homes Plan, is due to come out in October, containing plans for £13.2 billion in government spending. Heat pump watchers will be looking keenly to see if it contains the support the industry says it needs to keep that momentum going.  A UK local council was worried about the visual impact of heat pumps. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg Robert Redford, the quintessentially handsome leading man who died on Tuesday at the age of 89, leaves behind a legacy of environmental and climate activism. The actor, director and founder of the Sundance Film Festival first used his popularity back in the 1970s, when he helped block the construction of a coal power plant in an area of Utah that’s now a national monument. Later, he lobbied for the approval of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and became a board member of the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council. For decades, he helped raise awareness around climate change and environmental issues among the Hollywood elite and global leaders. “His unwavering commitment to protecting our planet and inspiring change matched his immense talent,” said actor and fellow environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio in a message on his Instagram page. “His impact will endure for generations to come.”  Robert Redford at the COP21 climate summit in Paris Photographer: Christophe Morin Leaking wells and toxic water threaten the Permian Basin, the US’s biggest oil field, where towers of toxic wastewater gush over 100 feet in the air, bursting through oil wells shut decades ago. Ireland is set allow data centers to use fossil fuels to power their operations, a shift that highlights the tension between economic growth and climate goals. Businesses globally are struggling to make transition plans that they can implement in the real world, according to a report by the London School of Economics and Political Science. You’ve heard about Formula 1, right? But do you know about Formula E, its plucky all-electric sibling? This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi talks with Sylvain Filippi, co-founder and chief technology officer of Envision Racing, about why the world needs an electric racing series, how Formula E is improving the experience for consumer electric cars, and why he’s not too concerned about the US backlash against EVs. Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday.  Formula E Gen3 race cars at the start of the Formula E Tokyo E-Prix in Tokyo. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg | 
