In January, The U.K. started a program to help improve home energy efficiency amid criticism that its Green Deal will fail to lure households that risk paying more for improvements than they save on bills. From January, the UK's 26.9 million homes have been able to upgrade their power bills to include loft or wall insulation in a bid to improve efficiency and lower overal power costs. Although Energy Secretary Ed Davey has said that "repayments shouldn't exceed efficiency savings", the Government cannot guarantee this and many believe, particuarly the oppositon Labour Party, that the Green Deal could "end up costing people more than they save". According to Davey, "Nearly 8 million homes have solid walls. Only 2 percent have been insulated... a three-bed semi detached house could save £275 a year if insulated under the scheme... There are huge savings for people living in those homes and a huge amount of carbon that can be saved to go towards our climate change targets". To meet targets, the UK needs to cut energy demand to lower carbon emmissions by 34% by 2020, whilst also reducing consumer power bills as the cost of fossil fuels rise. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the UKs buildings are amongst the world's least efficient and account for 38% of Britain's Greenhouse gas emissions. EON, British Gas and SSE are amongst the energy providers who have signed up to the scheme. (Quoted from an article published Jan 27,2013 by Sally Bakewell and Alex Morales of Bloomberg).