Tag: APPCCG

Uncomfortable home truths: Why Britain urgently needs a low carbon heat strategy

Posted on by janet.crompton



A new report backed by MPs and launched by Minister for Climate Change Lord Duncan on 15 October 2019, calls for an urgent Green Heat Roadmap by 2020 to scale low carbon heating technologies and help Britain’s homeowners access the advice they need to take smarter greener choices on heating their homes.  The year-long study by UK think-tank Policy Connect warns that the UK will miss its 2050 net-zero climate target “unless radical changes in housing policy, energy policy and climate policy are prioritised”. Dr Colin Nolden was at the launch on behalf of the Cabot Institute for the Environment and blogs here on the most interesting highlights of the report and questions raised.

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Policy Connect had invited a range of industry, policy, academic and civil society representatives to the launch of their Uncomfortable Home Truths report. The keynote, no less than Lord Duncan of Springbank, Minister for Climate Change, and the high-level panel consisting of Maxine Frerk, Grid Edge Policy (Chair), Alan Brown MP, House of Commons (SNP), Dr Alan Whitehead MP, House of Commons (Labour), Dhara Vyas, Citizens Advice, Adam Turk, BAXI Heating (sponsor) and Mike Foster, EUA (Energy & Utilities Alliance), (sponsor), had been briefed to answer tough questions from the crowd given the UK’s poor track record in the area of heat and home decarbonisation.

The event started with an introduction by Jonathan Shaw, Chief Executive of Policy Connect, who introduced the panel and officially launched the report. Uncomfortable Home Truths is the third report of the Future Gas Series, the first two of which focused on low-carbon gas options. This last report of the series shifts the focus from particular technologies and vectors towards heating, households and consumers. Jonathan subsequently introduced the keynote speaker Lord Duncan of Springbank, Minister for Climate Change.

Lord Duncan supported the publication of this report as timely and relevant especially in relation to the heat policy roadmap that government intends to publish in 2020. He stressed the importance of a cultural shift which needs to take place to start addressing the issue of heat at household and consumer level. He was adamant that the government was aligning its policies and strategies with its zero-carbon target according to the Committee on Climate Change and guided by science and policy. In this context he bemoaned the drive by some country representatives to put into question the targets of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change which he had witnessed as the UK’s key representative at the run-up to COP25 in Chile. The 2020 roadmap will report on the decisions which will need to be taken in homes and in technology networks, ranging from heat pumps to hydrogen and low-carbon electricity to support their decarbonisation. It requires cross-party support while depending on more research and learning from successful examples in other European countries.

Although Lord Duncan suggested that ‘it’s easier to decarbonise a power plant than a terraced house’, he told the audience to take encouragement from the fuel shift from coal towards gas starting half a century ago. But in this context he once again stressed the cultural shift which needs to go hand-in-hand with government commitment and technological progression, using the example of TV-chefs shunning electric hobs as an indication of our cultural affinity for gas. As long as heating and cooking are framed around fossil fuels, there is little space in the cultural imagination to encourage a shift towards more sustainable energy sources.

“The example of TV-chefs shunning electric hobs is an indication of our cultural affinity for gas”. Image source.

Among the questions following the keynote, one quizzed Lord Duncan about the process and politics of outsourcing carbon emissions. Lord Duncan stressed his support of Border Carbon Adjustments compliant with EU and global carbon policy ‘in lock-step with our partners’ to ensure that carbon emissions are not simply exported, which appears to support the carbon club concept. Another question targeted the UK’s favourable regulatory environment that has been created around gas, which has resulted in the EU’s lowest gas prices, while electricity prices are highest in Europe, due, among other things, to Climate Change Levies, which do not apply to gas, increasing by 46% on 1 April 2019. Lord Duncan pointed towards the ongoing review of policies ahead of the publication of the 2020 heat roadmap which will hopefully take a more vector- and technology-neutral approach. A subsequent rebuttal by a Committee on Climate Change (CCC) representative stressed the CCCs recommendation to balance policy cost between gas and electricity as on average only 20,000 heat pumps are sold in the UK every year (compared to 7 times as many in Sweden) yet the Renewable Heat Incentive is about to be terminated without an adequate replacement to support the diffusion of low-carbon electric heating technologies.

Lord Duncan stressed the need to create a simple ‘road’ which does not fall with changes in policy and once again emphasized the need for a cross-party road to support the creation of a low-carbon heating pathway. A UKERC representative asked about the government approach to real-world data as opposed to modelling exercises and their support for collaborative research projects as both modelling and competitive approaches have failed, especially in relation to Carbon Capture and Storage. Lord Duncan responded that the UK is already collaborating with Denmark and Norway on CCS and that more money is being invested into scalable and replicable demonstrators.

Following an admission wrapped in metaphors that a change in government might be around the corner and that roadmaps need to outlast such changes, Lord Duncan departed to make way for Joanna Furtado, lead author of the Policy Connect report. She gave a very concise overview of the main findings and recommendations in the report:

  • The 80% 2050 carbon emission reduction target relative to 1990 already required over 20,000 households to switch to low-carbon heating every week between 2025 and 2050. The zero-carbon target requires even more rapid decarbonisation yet the most successful policy constellations to date have only succeeded in encouraging 2,000 households to switch to low-carbon heating every week.
  • This emphasizes the importance of households and citizens but many barriers to their engagement persist such as privacy issues, disruption associated with implementation, uncertainly, low priority, lack of awareness and confusion around best approaches, opportunities, regulations and support.
  • Despite the focus on households, large-scale rollout also requires the development of supply chains so at-scale demonstrations need to go hand-in-hand with protection and engagement of households by increasing the visibility of successful approaches. Community-led and local approaches have an important role to play but better monitoring is required to differentiate between more and less successful approaches.
  • Protection needs to be changed to facilitate the inclusion of innovative technologies which are rarely covered while installers need to be trained to build confidence in their installations.
  • Regional intermediaries, such as those in Scotland and Wales, need to be established to coordinate these efforts locally while at national level a central delivery body such as the one established for the 2020 Olympics in London needs to coordinate the actions of the regional intermediaries.
  • Ultimately, social aspects are critical to the delivery of low-carbon heat, ranging from the central delivery body through regional intermediaries down to households and citizens.

 

Image source.

Chaired by Maxine Frerk of Grid Edge Policy, the panel discussion kicked off with Alan Brown who stressed the urgency of the heating decarbonisation issue as encapsulated by Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion and the need to operationalize the climate emergency into actions. He called for innovation in the gas grid in line with cautions Health and Safety Regulation alterations. Costs also need to be socialised to ensure that the low-carbon transition does not increase fuel poverty. His final point stressed the need reorganize government to make climate change and decarbonisation a number 1 priority.

Dr Alan Whitehead, who has been involved with the APPCCG from the beginning, emphasized how discussions around heat decarbonisation have progressed significantly in recent years and especially since the publication of the first report of this series. He suggested that the newest report writes the government roadmap for them. In relation to the wider context of decarbonising heat, Alan Whitehead encouraged a mainstreaming of heating literacy similar to the growing awareness of plastic. He also stressed how far the UK is lagging behind compared to other countries and this will be reflected in upcoming policies and roadmaps. As his final point Alan Whitehead cautioned that the low-intrusion option of gas-boiler upgrades from biomethane to hydrogen ignores the fact that greater change is necessary for the achievement of the zero-carbon target although he conceded that customer acceptance of gas engineer intervention appears to be high.

Dhara Vyas presented Citizens Advice perspective by stressing the importance of the citizen-consumer focus. Their research has revealed a lack of understanding among landlords and tenants of the rules and regulations that govern heat. She suggested that engagement with the public from the outset is essential to protect consumers as people are not sufficiently engaged with heating and energy in general. Even for experts it is very difficult to navigate all aspects of energy due to the high transaction costs associated with engagement to enable a transition on the scale required by government targets.

Finally, representatives of the two sponsors BAXI and the Energy & Utility Alliance made a rallying call for the transition of the gas grid towards hydrogen. Adam Turk emphasized the need to legislate and innovate appropriately to ensure that the 84% of households that are connected to the gas grid can receive upgrades to their boilers to make them hydrogen ready. Similarly, Mike Foster suggested that such an upgrade now takes less than 1 hour and that the gas industry already engages around 2 million consumers a year. Both suggested that the gas industry is well placed to put consumers at the heart of action. They were supported by several members of the audience who pointed towards the 150,000 trained gas service engineers and the ongoing distribution infrastructure upgrades towards plastic piping which facilitate a transition towards hydrogen. Other members of the audience, on the other hand, placed more emphasis on energy efficiency and the question of trust.

Sponsorship of the Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers, EUC (Energy & Utility Alliance) and BAXI Heating was evident in the title Future Gas Series and support for hydrogen and ‘minimal homeowner disruption’ boiler conversion to support this vector shift among members of the audience was evident. Nevertheless, several panel members, members of the audience and, above all, Lord Duncan of Springbank, stressed the need to consider a wider range of options to achieve the zero-carbon target. Electrification and heat pumps in particular were the most prominent among these options. Energy efficiency and reductions in energy demand, as is usual at such events, barely received a mention. I guess it’s difficult to cut a ribbon when there’s less of something as opposed to something new and shiny?

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This blog is written by Dr Colin Nolden, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, University of Bristol Law School and Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Colin Nolden

Why the time may be ripe for a Green New Deal

Posted on by janet.crompton
Image credit: Senate Democrats.

On the 8th July, parliamentarians, researchers and practitioners gathered in the House of Commons to discuss and debate the possibilities and practicalities of a Green New Deal in the UK. Drawing on insights and experience from both the UK and the USA, speakers included Caroline Lucas MP, James Heappey MP, John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, and Hannah Martin of Green New Deal UK.

The Green New Deal is a policy concept that asserts the need for wholesale, sustained and state-led economic investment to address the challenges of climate breakdown. Whilst it may often feel that these demands for a Green New Deal have come out of the blue, its entrance into the language of environmentalism can be found in 2007, when those concerned with climate breakdown and environmental problems argued that policies centred on improving the environment had important social consequences also.

2019 is, in many ways, the year where environmentalism has taken a radical step into the popular consciousness. Greta Thunberg, the School Strike for Climate and Extinction Rebellion have all occupied streets and seized the news cycle, raising awareness of (and anger at) the climate emergency.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

The result? MP’s have declared a climate emergency, the Committee on climate breakdown calling for ‘net zero’ emissions, and public concern for the environment is at a record high. It is this new and rising awareness that frees up space for a new, wide-ranging policy mechanism like the Green New Deal to take the stage and gain traction.

Adopting the language of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s policy response to the Great Depression, the Green New Deal has picked up the most traction in the USA, where Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement have spearheaded a growing movement around this idea, that soon took form in a Congressional Bill and a vision published by New Consensus. Several candidates for the Democrat nominee for President have announced Green New Deal-style policies.

A common criticism of the Green New Deal – evident in the parliamentary discussions – was that it can often take an “overly-ideological” flavour that isolates voters, constituencies and potential supporters. As the partisan-divisions around climate breakdown in the United States show, for a policy as wide-ranging as this to be accepted, it must have a base in cross-party support.

As the Gilets Jaunes in France have demonstrated, to forget the economic costs that environmental policy can impose on those who are already struggling can have profound consequences. Whilst we – as environmentalists – may often be focused on the ‘end of the world’, billions across the globe are, instead, worried about making it to the end of the month.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

This is, in many ways, an issue of branding. The key to understanding the Green New Deal is that it is synergistic – its policies simultaneously address environmental AND social issues. New policies of land ownership and use can be adapted to promote cooperative management, worker ownership and land justice. The wholesale fitting of solar energy panels to homes will also address issues of energy poverty. The application of a frequent flyer levy, taxing people based on how often they fly, will, in turn, represent a fairer system of taxing air travel than the current Air Passenger Duty.

Central under the current calls for a Green New Deal is the call for a global investment of 1.5 to 2.5% of global GDP in environmental policies per year. Available policies include targeted tax incentives and subsidies, land reform, transport electrification, green skills training, the expansion of carbon pricing and the rapid construction of renewable energy infrastructure. Green quantitative easing will also allow for the rapid influx of financial investment into communities, allowing for community-led sustainability projects.

These policies will function as powerful job-creators, with significant gains in employment numbers when compared to the relative numbers of those employed within a continued fossil fuel economy. Furthermore, rather than representing financial costs to be spent and lost, they represent an investment – with the environmental and social benefits of these policies leading to far greater economic returns.

Key, however, is where in the UK these policies will be implemented. Introducing low-carbon public transport will only go part of the way to addressing issues at the national level. Now is the time to implement these policies at the towns and places already left behind by rapid deindustrialisation – the Scunthorpes, the Welsh Valleys, the lost seaside towns. Already suffering from industrial decline, these sites must provide the sites of a new decarbonised economy of green investment.

The week before the parliamentary meeting, Common Wealth set out the numerous forms a Green New Deal can take in the post-Brexit UK. It is highly likely that more will follow, with the New Economics Foundation and Greenpeace both putting their own visions together.

For these policies to be successful, it must be accompanied by a strong policy steer from both Parliament and the UK Government. In calling for such expansive investment (likened to “three Marshall Plans and one Apollo moon landing” by Clive Lewis MP, the Labour spokesperson for the Treasury), it is essential that the plan moves beyond mere decarbonisation and towards a holistic approach to mitigating the climate breakdown and our role within it. For too long environmental policy has spoken of what is politically feasible, not what is scientifically urgent. Now is the time for that to change.
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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Ed Atkins, Teaching Fellow, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol.  

Dr Ed Atkins

Decarbonising the UK rail network

Posted on by janet.crompton
Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Caboteer Dr Colin Nolden blogs on a recent All-Party Parliamentary Rail & Climate Change Groups meeting on ‘Decarbonising the UK rail network’.  The event was co-chaired by Martin Vickers MP and Daniel Zeichner MP. Speakers included:

  • Professor Jim Skea, CBE, Imperial College London
  • David Clarke, Technical Director, RIA
  • Anthony Perret, Head of Sustainable Development, RSSB
  • Helen McAllister, Head of Strategic Planning (Freight and National Passenger Operators), Network Rail

The meeting kicked off with a broad overview of the global decarbonisation challenge by Jim Skea. As former member of the UK’s Climate Change Committee and Co-chair of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which oversaw the 1.5C report published in October 2018, as well member of the Scottish Just Transition Commissions, he emphasized that the net-zero target ‘is humongously challenging’. We need to recognise that all aspects of our land, economy and society require change, including lifestyles and behaviours. At the same time, the loophole of buying in permits to ‘offset’ decarbonisation in the UK net-zero target increases uncertainty as it is unclear what needs to be done territorially. The starting point for decarbonising mobility and many other sectors is nevertheless the decarbonisation of our electricity supply by 2030 as this allows the electrification of energy demand.

The recent International Energy Agency report on the ‘Future of Rail’ was mentioned. It suggests that the rail sector is one of the blindspots for decarbonisation although rail covers 8% of passenger transport, 7% of freight transport with only 2% of transport energy demand. The report concludes that a modal shift and sustainable electrification are necessary to decarbonise transport.

David Clarke pointed towards the difficulties encountered in the electrification of the Great Western line to Bristol and beyond to Cardiff but stressed that this was not a good measure for future electrification endeavours. Electrification was approached to ambitiously in 2009 following the 20-year electrification hiatus. Novel technology and deadlines with fixed time scales implied higher costs on the Great Western line. Current electrification phases such as the Bristol-Cardiff stretch, on the other hand, are being developed within the cost envelope. A problem now lies in the lack of further planned electrifications as there is a danger of demobilising relevant teams. Such a hiatus could once again lead to teething problems when electrification will be prioritised again. Bimodal trains that have accompanied electrification on the Great Western line will continue to play an important role in ongoing electrification as they allow at least part of the journeys to be completed free of fossil fuels.

Anthony Perret mentioned the RSSBs role in the ongoing development of a rail system decarbonisation strategy. The ‘what’ report was published in January 2019 and the ‘how’ report is still being drafted. Given that 70% of journeys and 80% of passenger kilometres are already electrified he suggested that new technology combinations such as hydrogen and battery will need to be tested to fill the gap where electrification is not economically viable. Hydrogen is likely to be a solution for longer distances and higher speeds while batteries are more likely to be suitable for discontinuous electrification such as the ‘bridging’ of bridges and tunnels. Freight transport’s 25,000V requirement currently implies either diesel or electrification to provide the necessary power. Anthony finished with a word of caution regarding rail governance complexities. Rail system governance needs an overhaul if it is not to hinder decarbonisation.

Helen McAllister is engaged in a task force to establish what funding needs to be made available for deliverable, affordable and efficient solutions. Particular interest lies on the ‘middle’ where full electrification is not economically viable but where promising combinations of technologies that Anthony mentioned might provide appropriate solutions. This is where emphasis on innovation will be placed and economic cases are sought. This is particularly relevant to the Riding Sunbeams project I am involved with as discontinuous and innovative electrification is one of the avenues we are pursuing. However, Helen highlighted failure of current analytical tools to take carbon emissions into account. The ‘Green Book’ requires revision to place more emphasis on environmental outcomes and to specify the ‘bang for your buck’ in terms of carbon to make it a driving factor in decision-making. At the same time, she suggested that busy commuter lines that are the obvious choice for electrification are also likely to score highest on decarbonisation.

David pointed out that despite ambitious targets in place, new diesel rolling stock that was ordered before decarbonisation took priority will only be put in service in 2020 and will in all likelihood continue running until 2050. This is an indication of the lock-in associated with durable rail assets that Jim Skea also strongly emphasized as a challenge to overcome. Transport for Wales, on the other hand, are already looking into progressive decarbonisation options, which include Riding Sunbeams, along with four other progressive decarbonisation projects currently being implemented. Helen agreed that diesel will continue to have a role to play but that franchise specification for rolling stock regarding passenger rail and commercial specification regarding freight rail can help move the retirement date forward.

Comments and questions from the audience suggest that the decarbonisation challenge is galvanising the industry with both rolling stock companies and manufacturers putting their weight behind progressive solutions. Ultimately, more capacity for rail is required to enable modal shift towards sustainable rail transport. In this context, Helen stressed the need to apply the same net-zero criteria across all industries to ensure that all sectors engage in the same challenge, ranging from aviation to railways. Leo Murray from Riding Sunbeams asked whether unelectrified railway lines into remote areas such as the Scottish Highlands, Mid-Wales and Cornwall could be electrified with overhead electricity transmission lines to transmit the power from such remote areas to urban centres with rail electrification as a by-product. Chair Danial Zeichner pointed towards a project that seeks to connect Calais and Folkstone with a thick DC cable through the channel tunnel and this is something we will follow up with some of the speakers.

In conclusion, Anthony pointed towards the Rail Carbon Tool which will help measure capital carbon involved in all projects above a certain size from January 2020 onwards as a step in the right direction. David pointed toward increasing collaboration with the advanced propulsion centre at Cranfield University to cross-fertilise innovative solutions across different mobility sectors.
Overall it was an intense yet enjoyable hour in a sticky room packed full of sustainable rail enthusiasts. Although this might evoke images of grey hair, ill-fitting suits and the odd trainspotting binoculars it was refreshing to see so many ideas and enthusiasm brought to fore by a topic as mundane as ‘decarbonising the UK rail network’.

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This blog is written by Dr Colin Nolden, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, University of Bristol Law School and Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Colin is currently leading a new Cabot Institute Masters by Research project on a new energy system architecture. This project will involve close engagement with community energy organizations to assess technological and business model feasibility. Sound up your street? Find out more about this masters on our website.

UK Climate Projections 2018: From science to policy making

Posted on by janet.crompton

On a sunny day earlier this week, I attended the UK Climate Projections 2018: From science to policy making, meeting in Westminster on behalf of the Cabot Institute. Co-hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group and the UK Met Office, the main purpose of this event was to forge discussions between scientists involved in producing the latest UK Climate Projections (UKCP18) and users from various sectors about the role of UKCP18 in increasing the UK’s preparedness of future climate change.

Many people in my constituency come and ask about climate change every day.

The event began with an opening remark by Rebecca Pow, the MP for Taunton Deane in Somerset. Somerset has seen some devastating floods over the years, and a new land drainage bill was passed a week prior to manage flood risk in the area. Constantly faced with questions from her constituents about climate change, Rebecca is particularly interested in regional climate change, both at present and in the future, and any opportunities that may arise from it.

Everyone would like a model of their back garden.

Prof Sir Brian Hoskins, the Founding Director and Chair of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, and Professor in Meteorology at the University of Reading, gave an overview on climate projection. He listed three main sources of uncertainty in 21st century climate projection: internal variability, model uncertainty, and human activity uncertainty. Climate scientists deal with these uncertainties by using large ensembles of simulations, a range of climate models, and a range of climate scenarios. However, there is always tension between model resolution, complexity and the need for many model runs in global climate projections due to constraints in computer resources. Regional climate models can be embedded in global domains to provide local weather and climate information, but they cannot correct large scale errors. The peer-reviewed UKCP18 provide both the statistics of global climate by combining data from different climate models and runs, and regional daily data for the UK and Europe.

A greater chance of warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers.

This was one of the headline results from UKCP18 shown by Prof Jason Lowe, Head of Climate Services for Government at the Met Office Hadley Centre. UKCP18 is an update from its predecessor, UKCP09, but with constraints from new observations and data from more climate models from around the world. The horizontal resolution of regional climate projections for the UK and Europe has increased from 25 km in UKCP09 to 12 km in UKCP18, with an even higher resolution (2.2 km) dataset coming out in summer 2019. UKCP18 results show that all areas of the UK are projected to experience warming, with greater warming in the summer than the winter. Summer rainfall is expected to decrease in the UK, whereas winter precipitation is expected to increase. However, when it rains in summer it may rain harder. Sea-level rise will continue under all greenhouse gas emission scenarios at all locations around the UK, impacting extreme water levels in the future.

Heat and health inter-connections are complex.

Prof Sarah Lindley, Professor of Geography at the University of Manchester, shared how UKCP18 could be used to study the health effects of climate change and urban heat in the UK. Many of us would remember how hot it was last summer; by 2050, hot summers of that type may happen every other year, even under a low greenhouse gas emission scenario. The most extreme heat-related hazards are in cities due to the Urban Heat Island effect (UHI), i.e. urban areas are often warmer than surrounding rural areas. For instance, Manchester’s UHI intensity (difference between urban and rural temperatures) has increased significantly since the late 1990s. By the end of this century, the city of Manchester is projected to be 2.4ºC warmer than its surrounding rural area in a UKCP09 medium emission scenario. With an aging population, UK’s vulnerability to heat may increase in the future. Both exposure and vulnerability to heat contribute to heat disadvantage. High-resolution UKCP18 data, together with social vulnerability maps of the UK, provide new opportunities to heat disadvantage and adaptation research.

European birds will need to shift about 550 km north-east under 3ºC warming.

The next speaker was Dr Olly Watts, Senior Climate Change Policy Officer for the RSPB, the largest nature conservation charity in the UK. Climate adaptation is an important aspect of nature conservation work, as it should be in everyone’s work. The Climatic Atlas of European Breeding Birds finds that not only will European birds shift 550 km under a likely 3ºC increase in global average temperature, but also a quarter of the bird species will be at high risk. Currently 5000 bird species are changing species distribution, and they face an uncertain future. The UKCP18 data of 2-4ºC warmer worlds could be used to derive qualitative strategies to build wildlife resilience against climate change. Adaptation strategies including informing nature reserve management will be in place across the RSPB conservation programme. The RSPB will also use UKCP18 data to raise public awareness of climate change.

Water demand can increase by 30% on a hot day.

Dr Geoff Darch, Water Resources Strategy Manager at Anglian Water, began his talk by highlighting the inherent climate vulnerabilities in water management in the East of England. It is a “water stressed” region that has low lying and extensive coastline, sensitive habitats, and vulnerable soils. On a hot day, water demand can go up by 30%. Climate change alone is expected to have a total impact of 55 Ml/day on water supplies in the region by 2045. A growing risk of severe drought means an additional impact of 26 Ml/day is expected, not to mention the impacts of population growth. The water industry is proactively adapting to these challenges by setting up plans to reduce leakage and install smart meters for customers. UKCP09 has been used extensively for climate change risk assessment across the water sector; the latest UKCP18 could be used in hydrological modelling, demand modelling, storm impact modelling, flood risk assessment, and sensitivity testing to assess the robustness of water resources management solutions under a range of climate scenarios.

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This blog was written by Cabot Institute member Dr Eunice Lo, from the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. Her research focusses on climate change, extreme weather and human health.

Dr Eunice Lo

 

Brexit: A climactic decision?

Posted on by janet.crompton

In the lead up to the Brexit vote, we are posting some blogs from our Cabot Institute members outlining their thoughts on Brexit and potential implications for environmental research, environmental law and the environment.  
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With barely a week to go to the Referendum, the Environment has singularly failed to make itself an issue in the BREXIT debate. Yet it is impossible to explore any aspect of environmental law in the UK without encountering European Law.  It is therefore no surprise that environmental lawyers and environmental groups have been queuing up to express concerns about the implications of BREXIT – Margherita Piericcini’s Cabot Institute blog on the impact on wildlife and habitats is an example.

So why has the environment not become a key issue?  I attended the All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group’s event ‘A Climactic Decision: Brexit’s impact on the UK’s climate and environment’ at the Houses of Parliament earlier this month in the hope of finding out why.

Chaired by Mark Mardell, Mary Creagh MP Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee and Professor Michael Grubb (UCL) spoke for remaining. Roger Helmer MEP UKIP European Parliament Industry, Research and Energy Committee  and Lee Upcroft spoke for exit on the topic of Staying in the EU is the best way to protect the UK’s climate and environment.

The first problem that was manifest is that those strongly engaged in climate change and the environment more generally, are convinced of the role of the EU: in the opening vote at the debate all but one person in the audience were voting remain. Equally for those voting leave, climate change may not be a concern to them: Professor Michael Grubb speaking in the debate referred to the ‘twin horns’ of climate change and EU membership to argue that remaining in the EU and climate change action have much in common. Both require an acceptance of expert evidence, acceptance of uncertainty and a willingness to work collaboratively across cultures, surrendering some individual independence in the wider good.

The environment is the one place where BREXIT campaigners do not argue that most things from Brussels are awful. Put simply the environmental case for remaining is that just about all of the environmental law that benefits the UK stems from the EU.  Few countries or regional groupings in the world have the sort of comprehensive environmental laws the EU has, or has had them so long.

The BREXIT speakers in the debate sought to argue that the sorts of environmental action that the EU has adopted were ‘in the air globally’ and the UK would probably have done it anyway.  If that is so, the remain speakers countered, why has the UK ended up in the European Courts so often for not implementing EU environmental law ? All too often when the EU has agreed new laws to protect the environment the UK has had to be taken to the European Court of Justice to secure compliance – for example when the Bathing Waters Directive was adopted, the UK Initially registered fewer bathing beaches than Luxembourg (don’t dive for a map it is landlocked, but it registered each cove round its lakes). It took the European Court of Justice to sort that one, and bring the UK into compliance. The same with urban waste water (sewage) where it took the European Court to force the UK to stop discharging untreated sewage into the sea. And the list goes on. So this does not look as if  the UK ‘would have introduced all these environmental laws anyway’.

The second BREXIT argument was that as the UK leads the EU on climate change, it does not need the EU.  Climate change and pollution do not respect EU borders, so we need global action not regional action, Remain speakers countered by arguing that it is easier to convince 27 other states of our concerns, and then take joint action. Once the EU takes action it has a strong voice on the global stage. Outside the EU the UK would be but one voice in nearly 200 states, a much harder task to convince 200 than just 27. Michael Grubb put it bluntly – the UK has more influence to achieve action on climate change in than out.

A third argument was about free trade. Here the BREXIT speakers argued that the UK would be free to create whatever environmental rules it wanted on its own or in multilateral partnerships of its choice and to scrap those (unspecified) that count as unacceptable burdens.  But as an expert from the floor who had been involved in UK / USA trade negotiations explained, in his experience the UK alone makes little progress in getting decent terms from the USA, until the EU as a whole throws its weight behind the negotiations. When asked about the impact of World Trade Organisation obligations on this argument, BREXIT speakers claimed nobody had raised this with them before. Put simply, the nostalgic world of a UK free to create whatever rules it wants does not exist, in or out of the EU. The WTO Treaty obligations mean states cannot unilaterally impose what can be seen as trade barriers by setting national rules, without ending up in the WTO courts. Only regional treaty commitments protect environmental rules in restraint of free trade from the WTO court. The EU is the strongest example of that sort of trade treaty.

When it came to energy, the BREXIT argument was that EU membership had kept energy prices high,  particularly through VAT and the Combustion Plant Directive closing our coal fired power stations. Yet energy prices across the rest of the EU are 40% below the UK, because of their longstanding commitment to renewables, and Germany in particular continues to use coal by investing in compliant technology.  UK government decisions were identified as the problem. The harmonisation of the energy market will produce £500m a year energy cost savings to the UK by 2020 – quite apart from energy security and the capacity for us to export surplus energy.  The EU’s global muscle has led to reductions in the cost of renewables technical – solar power costs have fallen by 30% as a result for example.

So, after two hours of debate, the remain speakers felt the gains from the EU should be retained, the BREXIT debaters felt that all the good things that have come from the EU would have come anyway, and that there is a world outside of the EU in which the UK will be free to have whatever environmental protections it wants, in a nostalgic world of free nation states. The WTO will have something to say about that – or perhaps the UK will simply scrap so much of its environmental protections in pursuit of deregulation and free trade that we will not trouble the WTO.

You can download a summary of this discussion on the APPCCG website.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Chris Willmore, Senior Academic Fellow in Environmental Law at the University of Bristol.  Chris is also the University lead academic for Technology Enhanced Learning and currently leads the University Green Academy team which is developing education for sustainable development across the University curriculum.

Read other blogs in the Brexit series:

Hydrogen and fuel cells: Innovative solutions for low carbon heat

Posted on by janet.crompton

On 29 February 2016, I attended a meeting in Westminster that was jointly organised by the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association (UKFCA) and Carbon Connect with the aim of discussing current challenges in the decarbonisation of heat generation in the UK. The panel included David Joffe (Committee on Climate Change), Dr. Marcus Newborough (ITM Power), Ian Chisholm (Doosan Babcock), Klaus Ullrich (Fuel Cell Energy Solutions), Phil Caldwell (Ceres Power) and was chaired by Dr Alan Whitehead MP and Shadow Energy Minister. The attendees included a number of key players in the field of hydrogen production, fuel cell and renewable energy industries, as well as organisations such as the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

To set the scene, I would like to quote some facts and figures from the 2015 Carbon Connect report on the Future of Heat (part II).

  1. The 2025 carbon reduction target is 404.4 MtCO2e (million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent), but the reduction levels as of 2014 have only been 288.9 MtCO2e. The current Government’s low carbon policy framework is woefully inadequate to bridge this gap.
  2. The government introduced the Renewable Heat Incentive in 2011, with the ambition of increasing the contribution of renewable energy source to 12% of the heat demand by 2020. Some of the initiatives include biomass, “energy from waste” and geothermal. However, clear policies and financial incentives are nowhere to be seen.
  3. What is the current situation of renewable heat and how good is the 12% target? The good news is that there is a slight increase in the renewable share from 2004. The really bad news is that the contribution as of 2013 is just 2.6%. The UK is further behind any other EU state with regards to its renewable heat target. Sweden has a whopping 67.2% contribution and Finland 50.9%.

Towards a decarbonised energy sector, two important networks should be considered, electrical and gas. Electrification of heat is very well suited for low carbon heat generation, however, the electricity demands at peak time could be extremely costly. The UK’s gas network is a major infrastructure which is vital for providing gas during peak heat demand. However, it needs to be re-purposed in order to carry low carbon gas such as bio-methane, hydrogen or synthetic natural gas.

It was clear from the debate that hydrogen can play an important role in decreasing carbon emissions even within the current gas network. The introduction of up to 10% of hydrogen into gas feed can still be compatible with current gas networks and modern appliances, while generating a significant carbon emission reduction. However, where is the hydrogen coming from? For heat production at the national scale, steam reforming is the only player. However, with the government pulling away from carbon capture and storage (CCS), this option cannot provide a significant reduction in carbon emissions.  Capital costs associated with electrolysers would not be able to deliver the amount of hydrogen required at peak demands. The frustration in this community with regards to the future of CCS was palpable during the networking session.

We need hydrogen, generated from renewable energy sources… but the question is how?

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member David J. Fermin, Professor of Electrochemistry in the University of Bristol’s School of Chemistry.  His research group are currently looking at the direct conversion of solar energy to chemical fuels, in particular hydrogen; the conversion of CO2 to fuels; and electrocatalysts for energy vectors (e.g. what you put in fuel cells and electrolysers).

David Fermin

David will be giving a free talk on the challenges of solar energy conversion and storage on Tuesday 12 April 2016 at 6.15 pm at the University of Bristol.  To find out more and to book your ticket, visit the University of Bristol’s Public and Ceremonial Events web page.

APPCCG & DECC: Presenting the Global Calculator

Posted on by janet.crompton

I recently had the great pleasure of being part of the Global Calculator presentation that took place in Parliament and was organized by Policy Connect.

In the background of the Paris talks and with more and more voices being raised demanding action to be taken against climate change, it is clear that the Global Calculator is a very ambitious project with a very demanding audience: all of us!

So what is the Global Calculator? By 2050, the global population is expected to grow from 7 billion today to 10 billion, and the global economy is expected to triple in size. This is the backdrop against which we are presented with the challenge of cutting global greenhouse gas emissions by half of today’s levels by 2050 in order to meet our international commitments to restrict the global mean temperature to 2°C. Leading scientists from over ten organizations came together and built a model of the world’s energy, land, food and climate systems to 2050. The team built the Global Calculator to model what lifestyle is physically possible for the world’s population – from kilometres travelled per person to calorie consumption and diet – and the energy, materials and land requirements to satisfy all of this. The climate impacts of different pathways are also illustrated by linking the model to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate science. The model has been tested with experts from more than 150 organisations around the world. Uniquely, you can use it yourself – the model, its methodology and assumptions are all published.

What is absolutely amazing about this project is the response it has received with more than 20,000 results (or ‘pathways’ as the experts called them)which have already been submitted by individuals!

The enthusiastic panel consisted of: Laura Aylett, Policy Analyst from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Simon Harrison, Manager from the Group Strategic Development, Grahame Buss, Principal Researcher of Shell and Dr Jeremy Wood from Imperial College London.

Ms Aylett, who presented the software and its uses also noted that in the beginning, it was only a UK Calculator that was developed but more and more countries became interested in this project that they all started developing their own Calculators and this was what resulted in the Global Calculator.  That remark was seconded heartedly by Mr Harrison who referred to the software as “UK’s gift to the world”.

A very interesting presentation was that of Mr Buss from Shell who have as a company also submitted two official pathways, one called Mountains and one called Oceans, trying to reach the emissions goal set by the software.

Finally Dr Woods who was one of the leading scientists developing the Calculator presented us with some more technical information and details about how the model was developed and the challenge of keeping it simple but also effective and functional.

In all it was an absolutely fantastic experience, extremely informative that I would like to conclude with the final words of Dr Wood’s presentation:

“The time to act is now”

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Eleni Michalopoulou, a PhD student in the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol.

Eleni blogs on a recent meeting of the All Party Parliament Climate Change Group.

Could retaining old coal lead to a policy own goal?

Posted on by janet.crompton

A large painting and an imposing statue of the former Speaker of the House of Commons Betty Boothroyd overlooked a busy Boothroyd Room at Portcullis House in Westminster.  Members of parliament, journalists, academics, NGOs and Third Sector organisations gathered to hear the reporting and discussion of a new report from Imperial College on the future of coal power in the UK as part of a All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group meeting on 20 November 2014.

This report was commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund to give an idea of whether the continued operation of the eleven existing coal-fired plants in the UK is compatible with the UK’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Coal-fired power stations in the UK still generate approximately 36% of the country’s electricity (WWF briefing data). I was personally amazed how large this figure is and underlines the relevance of this type of economic modelling to the future of the energy mix in the UK.

The panel was chaired by Lord Oxburgh and consisted of Dr Robert Gross (Director, Imperial College Centre for Energy Policy and Technology), Tim Yeo MP (Chair, Energy and Climate Change Committee), Baroness Bryony Worthington (Shadow Spokesperson, Energy and Climate Change) and Jessica Lennard (Head of Corporate Affairs, Ovo Energy).

 

After the report had been summarised by Robert Gross, each member of the panel had a chance to speak before the discussion was opened to the floor and this is where opinions and politics began to show their faces.

The first panel member to speak after the introduction of the report was Baroness Bryony Worthington, an enthusiastic environmental campaigner who was appointed to the Labour benches of the House of Lords in 2011. Her opposition to so-called “unabated” coal power (generation without measures to capture emitted carbon) was clear and unambiguous, describing coal power stations from the 1960s as unreliable, inefficient and polluting. Political and economic realities were also introduced when she noted that “old coal” will tend to squeeze out “new gas” due (at least in part) to the large infrastructure costs associated with building a new gas powered facility, in spite of its better environmental credentials. Baroness Worthington’s short response (panel members were only given 5 minutes to initially respond to the report) was enthusiastic and pulled no punches.

The next panel member to speak was Tim Yeo MP (a former Minister for the Environment and Countryside in John Major’s government in the 1990s). He openly stated that he shared Baroness Worthington’s concerns and that he supports “full decarbonisation”, although the details of this wish (commendable as they may be), were lacking. He criticised the “20th century energy mind-set” of many in political and industrial energy circles, i.e. those who simply want to build more generators. Although this jibe was clearly not aimed at any one body or person in particular, National Grid’s financial incentives to build more capacity were noted.

Jessica Lennard noted that their customers are not happy with the amount of coal currently in the energy mix that they are able to supply, which was clearly a worry for a company where customers are free to come and go as they please (noting that they are a supplier not a generator of energy).

As is increasingly the case nowadays, especially with such a potentially incendiary subject as future power generation, there were many members of the audience who were active on their twitter accounts during the meeting itself, myself included I should add. Those who were adding to the online debate, and keeping those who weren’t present in the loop included the head of modelling at the Committee on Climate Change, the public affairs team of the World Wildlife Fund and the UK chief scientist of Greenpeace, although none of the tweets that I noted at the time or since seemed particularly argumentative or controversial. I must admit I found this rather surprising. I was certainly expecting some fireworks, yet the meeting often seemed more like an academic conference than a committee meeting overlooking the Thames just a hundred metres or so from the Palace of Westminster itself.

By far the most animated person in the room (and on twitter before the meeting) was Baroness Worthington, noting that DECC’s “crossed fingers” were not enough on this issue.

I personally left the meeting feeling that there is much still to do on this front and Lord Oxburgh echoed what I feel was a general feeling in the room, closing the meeting with a plea for “policy certainty” and I think this is something that everyone in the room would welcome.

This last point is particularly pertinent with the upcoming ‘COP21’ meeting in Paris in December 2015 because it is at this meeting that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiators will aim to agree on global, legally binding climate targets. Tim Yeo was clearly mindful of this, noting that the UK should aim to cut emissions by 40% with respect to 1990 levels “going in to Paris”. With coal power still such an important player in the UK energy mix, the potential for this industry to make inroads into this target are substantial.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member, Dr Jonny Williams, an environmental physicist working in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol.

Further reading

Report from a (slightly less-depressed) climate scientist on the All Parliamentary Climate Change Group meeting on “stranded assets”

Posted on by janet.crompton
Synthesis Report of the IPCC. Image credit IPCC

Lets face it, it’s fairly depressing being a climate scientist.  The Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was adopted by the world governments last Sunday (2 November 2014). This report drew on the three individual reports published over the last year on the Science, Impacts and Mitigation of climate change, all of which I was proud to contribute to.  Yet apart from a few comments from the global great and good on the urgency of the situation and the need to move away from fossil fuels to avoid changes that will be dangerous for mankind and nature alike, it made relatively little headlines. I was wondering if it would really make any difference to anything that anyone does. I will still dread Daily Mail-reading cab drivers asking me what I do for a living, as it’s disheartening to try and explain the science to someone who has far more pressing and immediate concerns and would rather not think about, let alone believe, what we scientists repeatedly say, stronger, louder, and with far richer detail, but basically unchanged over the last 20 years.

So I was really encouraged, if not elated, after attending the All Parliamentary Climate Change Group meeting on “Stranded Assets: How can policy makers act to ensure economic stability while reducing emissions?”.  It wasn’t just that it was fun to be at the Houses of Parliament on the 5th November.  It seems that certain parts of the financial sector are taking climate risk extremely seriously and advising that investment in the fossil fuel industry (where 15 to 20% of UK pension investments are placed) is no longer the safe bet it used to be, that the risks are too high and that investors should better put their money into “clean” alternatives such as renewables.

What are ‘stranded assets’?

These are assets that succumb to unanticipated devaluation due to technology change, consumer change, regulatory change etc.    In other words, investments in large infrastructure fossil fuel projects could become devalued in the future due to factors such as increasing capital costs of fossil fuels (e.g. due to extraction, regulation, carbon pricing, costs of using carbon capture and storage technology), decreasing costs of competitive renewables, and increasing direct physical risks to the industry from climate impacts.  Thus investing in them is more risky than many investors take account of, as such risks do not currently have to be disclosed.  The Carbon Tracker Initiative have published reports on this, managing to take the science and talk in the language of the financial industry to present a convincing argument for why and how to reassess business models and investment portfolios.

One may easily argue that the Carbon Tracker Initiative was set up to solve the challenge of moving away from fossil fuels through actions within the capital market, so they are bound to say this. But it seems some very established Institutions feel the same.  Just a few weeks ago the Rockefeller Foundation, that initially built their fortune on the back of oil, announced that it was going to move away from investment in fossil fuels and switch to clean technology investment.  Last month at the World Bank, Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England warned investors to avoid the “carbon bubble” of stranded fossil fuel assets, as many governments (e.g. Norway and Sweden), businesses and individual wealthy investors commit to divesting away from fossil fuels. The organisation 350.org, having successfully persuaded many companies in the USA to divest, is putting pressure on UK businesses. Edinburgh University has signed up…take note Bristol – is this something we should do?

As Tim Yeo, Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change committee put it, the science is accepted.  The fact that we have to keep within the trillion tonnes of CO2 emissions to avoid “dangerous” changes above 2 degrees seemed to be widely accepted among the various political and financial bodies represented at the meeting.  Cost is now the issue, and those countries (and businesses) that reduce early will have enormous economic benefit.  Is everyone else as convinced? Well sadly not everyone, but at least if enough investors start to move they can lead the governments, which is more of an encouraging prospect than holding out for global agreement and strong action from the governments in Paris next year.
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This blog is written by Dr Jo House, Cabot Institute, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol.  Jo is a Leverhulme Research Fellow looking at the role of the terrestrial biosphere in climate change and climate mitigation.

Jo House

Public opinion: What is it really worth?

Posted on by janet.crompton
I recently attended a session at the House of Commons co-hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group (APPCCG) and the Centre on Innovation and Energy Demand (CIED). The session tackled the topic of the UK’s “energy efficiency revolution”, and whether the UK is living up to the high standards expected by successive governments.
 
Energy efficiency is what is known as a demand-side measure in the language of energy policymakers. Making devices that use energy more efficient is one way of reducing demand for energy overall, and thus bringing the UK closer to its carbon reduction goals. Indeed, increasing energy efficiency is often regarded as one of the most cost-effective methods of carbon reduction.
 
An area of great interest to researchers in this field is human behaviour; how can people be induced to behave in a way that reduces their carbon emissions?
 
The ‘default’ reaction of governments when attempting to change the behaviour of their citizens is to provide financial incentives to encourage adoption of the desired behaviour. This is based on simple economic theory, and depends on the assumption that the average rational citizen will immediately drop undesirable habits as soon as it becomes financially worthwhile to do so.
 
An alternative view is that people are not swayed as heavily by financial motives as they are by their fundamental beliefs; if somebody is a firm believer in the cause of tackling climate change, they can be relied upon to adopt energy-saving behaviours sooner or later.
 
There is a fundamental tension between these two views of how humans behave. Energy policymakers often find themselves caught between these viewpoints, and this can cause delays and poor policy decisions. This is a question that clearly needs to be addressed by researchers.

Let’s take a closer look at this problem by using a simple mathematical model. Imagine that there is a new behaviour, perhaps a form of recycling, that the government is keen for people to adopt. Since it is brand new, almost nobody has heard of it, and even fewer people have actually adopted it.

In order to make this behaviour the norm, the government allocates some of its limited resources to the problem. These resources can either be spent on advertising, to win people over to the behaviour on ideological grounds, or can be spent on direct financial incentives. The government has to choose what proportion of the resources go towards advertising and incentives, based on the objective of full adoption of the behaviour as quickly as possible.

In our model, a certain proportion of the population choose to adopt the new behaviour each day. That proportion is a function of the number of ideological believers (which I will henceforth refer to as ‘public opinion’) and the financial incentive available. Money spent on incentives therefore provides an immediate boost to the adoption of the new behaviour, whereas advertising has an indirect effect. The effect of advertising is to convert a certain number of people each day into ideological believers, making them far more likely to adopt the new behaviour.

 

 

 

 

So what are the results of this simple model? It’s clear that using financial incentives causes the time needed to reach full adoption to become shorter. Therefore, should the government should always use financial incentives in order to reach its stated objectives as quickly as possible?
 
Unfortunately it isn’t that simple. While it is true that the objective of full adoption is met quicker by using mostly financial incentives, the gap between ‘economic’ and ‘ideological’ adopters is large; it’s possible that many of the people who have adopted the behaviour will return to their old ways as soon as the incentives are taken away. It’s also worth considering the possibility that ideological adopters might also be easier to convince when it comes time to introduce the next energy-saving behaviour, whereas economic adopters would need to be paid off from scratch.
 
I should say at this point that this model is meant as a means of communicating a concept, and is an oversimplification of the way technology and belief adoption actually works. I’ve also chosen parameters for the model arbitrarily – choosing a different set of parameters or tweaking the model could result in radically different outcomes.

Nonetheless, the underlying tension remains; should we invest in changing people’s opinions, even if it’s a longer, costlier process? What is public opinion really worth?

It’s my sincere hope that researchers, be it from CIED, Cabot Institute or elsewhere, will be able to answer these questions in the years to come.
 
This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Neeraj Oak, the Chief Analyst and Energy Practice Lead at Shift Thought.

 
Neeraj Oak
 
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