It is imperative that climate, energy, and sustainability policy researchers and practitioners grapple with the difficulty of decarbonizing heat, which remains the largest single end-use energy service worldwide. In this study, based on a comparative assessment of five original and representative national surveys in Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (N = 10,109), we explore public attitudes of household heat decarbonization in Europe. We explore how people conceive of the purposes of low-carbon heat, their preferences for particular forms of heat supply, and their (at times odd) practices of heat consumption and temperature settings. The data reveal four significant challenges to heat decarbonization that are consistent across geographies: 1) High satisfaction with existing, often fossil fuel based, heating systems; 2) Varying and divergent preferences and expectations for thermal comfort; 3) Householders unlikely to change their heating system in the near-term, in part driven by low familiarity and knowledge of alternative systems; and 4) heat satisfaction appears lower as the fuel mix is decarbonized. The paper concludes by connecting these findings with policy and research implications.

至关重要的是，气候，能源和可持续性政策研究人员和从业人员必须努力应对热量脱碳的困难，因为热量脱碳仍然是全球最大的单一最终用途能源服务。在本研究中，基于对德国，意大利，西班牙，瑞典和英国（N = 10,109）的五项原始且具有代表性的国家调查的比较评估，我们探索了欧洲家庭热脱碳的公众态度。我们探索人们如何理解低碳热的目的，他们对特定形式供热的偏好以及他们（有时是奇怪的）热量消耗和温度设置的做法。数据揭示了四个地区在热脱碳方面面临的四个重大挑战：1）对现有的，通常以化石燃料为基础的加热系统高度满意；2）对热舒适性的偏好和期望各不相同；3）居民不太可能在短期内改变其供暖系统，部分原因是对替代系统的了解和了解不足；4）随着燃料混合物的脱碳，热满意度降低。本文通过将这些发现与政策和研究意义联系起来而得出结论。