The climate watcher warned that the development of heat pumps has stopped due to the termination of government support

As opposed to heat pumps, the continued record sales of electric cars indicate that they are all set to replace their petrol and diesel counterparts on UK roads in the coming years.

Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, hailed the progress of green transport.

“We’ve made huge progress in things like electric vehicles, one in four cars bought in the UK today is now an EV.”

The growth was accelerated due to the Iranian oil crisis, which caused a sharp increase in the price of petrol and diesel, forcing people at the pump to look for other options.

“We can see in the numbers what people want – cheaper cars and cars that save money, especially fossil fuels,” she said.

But the industry body, the Motor Manufacturers Association (SMMT), said that most of this demand came from the car manufacturers’ high discounts.

“This will cost the industry more than £10 billion from 2024 – an unsustainable amount of money that needs to go into R&D, manufacturing and workforce,” said SMMT chief executive Mike House.

He backed the government’s plan to weaken the Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) mandate – which sets targets for the number of EV manufacturers and fines for failing to meet the targets.

The UKCCC disagreed and urged the Government to maintain its policy.