Ordinary citizens must be informed of the dramatic lifestyle changes and costs they face, says Geoffrey Hammond , and Tim Walker focuses on the area of new solar panels that will be required

The ambition in the Labour party’s new plans for achieving net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is, of course, welcome (Labour spells out 30-point plan in new green pledge, 24 October). But climate change is a global phenomenon, and the UK only emits 1% of annual world GHG emissions in contrast to China at 22%, the US 13%, the rest of the EU28 7%, and India 7%.

In order to ensure that the average global atmospheric temperature is stabilised at around 1.5C-2C, thereby avoiding dramatic climate change in this century, the large emitter countries will need to significantly reduce their emissions going forward.

The work of the UK government’s independent expert group (the Committee on Climate Change) has indicated that achieving the net-zero emissions target here by 2050 will require quite dramatic interventions and changes in lifestyles. The ultimate costs of many low-carbon options – for buildings, transport, food production, consumer products and electricity generation – will disproportionately fall on the relatively poor in society.

Thus climate activists or political parties that wish Britain to take a moral lead, and bring forward the date for achieving net-zero emissions from the present target of 2050, need to make clear the case and costs of doing that to ordinary citizens.

Geoffrey Hammond

Emeritus professor, Department of mechanical engineering, University of Bath

• Labour’s vision of enough new solar panels to cover 22,000 football pitches is hard to imagine. While nowhere near enough to cover Wales, these equate to an area roughly the size of Manchester or a third of the Isle of Wight, which might be the better choice as it benefits from more sunshine hours.

Tim Walker

London

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

• Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition