Short Termism is a Home Truth?

The UK government will not bring in new house energy standards until 2025, 'because it increases the purchase cost for new homes'. House builders strongly advocated this delay (perhaps to keep their sales buoyant?). This seems likely to cost householders, who have purchased a new-built home in the next 4 years, some £20,000 each (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/23/buyers-of-brand-new-homes-face-20000-bill-to-make-them-greener). The UK government has committed the country to being carbon neutral by 2050 (a touch slow, given the urgency of the situation?). To stand a chance of achieving this, housing will have to be brought up to high energy efficiency standards (calculated as costing around £5000 per new-built house). This means, for example, replacing gas boilers with heat pumps. The £20,000 bill per householder, reflects the much greater cost of retrofitting the required changes. The total bill for doing this for the whole UK is around £20bn. Requiring house builders to conform to the higher energy efficient standards now would be better. Higher energy efficiency will reduce the running costs for the house buyer. The purchaser might pay more for the house but it would be cheaper to run. Instead, each new home owner seems likely to get an inflated bill, when they have to make the changes in 2025.