Michael Taylor, previously Chair of CAT’s Board of Trustees between 2010-2022 was recently awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for services to Charity and Innovation on the 2025 New Year Honours List.
(more…)Author: alis.rees
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IndiNature receive £3m investment to open UK factory
CAT Graduate company IndiNature have received £3m in funding from the Scottish National Investment Bank to open the first dedicated natural insulation UK factory.
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The Lives We Want Exhibition – call for student entries
The Centre for Alternative Technology and Aberystwyth University are delighted to collaborate on the exhibition ‘The Lives We Want: Life and Earth Beyond Covid-19’ and invite students at both institutions to respond to a call for entries.
The Idea
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is affecting all areas of life, and living with the coronavirus has thrown into relief many of our habitual ways of being and our ways of living on this planet, including our entanglements with the non-human world. Covid-19 has provided a tragic reminder of the interconnections on which we all depend, underlined by the continuing threats of climate change and biodiversity loss. In the light of these intertwined issues, we need cultural, artistic, and technological responses which help us to rearticulate new visions of what matters and how to engage with planetary realities and relationships – human and non-human.
Following this theme CAT and Aberystwyth University students (undergraduate and postgraduate) are invited to submit proposals for scholarly, creative, or critical/creative crossover contributions to a multi-site exhibition which will run physically at CAT and Aberystwyth University later in the year and in an online space curated by both institutions from June 2021 onwards.
Adrian Watson, Head of CAT’s Graduate School said “During their courses, CAT postgraduate students gain the knowledge and skills to reflect upon practical solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss. During one of the core course modules, they participate in futuring exercises where they consider ‘what does a zero-carbon future look like?’ This exhibition allows our students to put their ideas into creative practice.
Many of our students come not just from environmental science backgrounds but architecture and the arts too, so we are looking forward to seeing how they interpret the exhibitions’ brief and what media and artefacts they create to discuss what does a healthy, just, and creative post-COVID world look like, in the context of both environmental and social crises? And what steps might be made towards a more socially inclusive, ethical, and sustainable planetary co-existence?”
Themes
The exhibition will be curated by a group of staff from both institutions and contributions should address the overall theme of the exhibition and rearticulate new visions of what matters and how to engage with planetary realities and relationships, from any of the following perspectives, or a combination thereof:
- Health, wellbeing, future generations, work, mobility, and home
- Social justice, equality of access to services/space, employment, participation, and equity
- Culture, heritage, identity, communication/s, creating and making
- Biodiversity, nature conservation, regeneration, land-use, food
- Net-zero, emissions, energy systems, low carbon futures, sustainable design
Kim Knowles, Senior Lecturer within the Film, Theatre and TV department at Aberystwyth University said “By using both an online space and physical locations at CAT and at the Aberystwyth University campus for this exhibition we are encouraging students to think creatively with the media they propose using in their entries. We are looking forward to seeing the contributions which can be in any of a range of media – or a combination – including but not limited to: written, spoken, video, visual, performance, artefacts and installations, web-based media, augmented or virtual reality”
The Lives We Want is a gender-inclusive project. Proposals that consider and/or reflect the diversity of human experience during and after Covid-19 are welcome. The exhibition also welcomes contributions in both Welsh and English.
Further information
The invitation for proposals will be open until 31 July 2021, with the online exhibition scheduled to launch in June 2021 and growing over time as entries are added. Further information about the physical and online exhibitions will be announced in due course.
Students can find out more details about creating a proposal here and submit their proposal by emailing theliveswewant@aber.ac.uk or tll@aber.ac.uk at any point from 1 April to 31 July 2021.
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CAT students run Transformation Prize
Hannah Gardiner and Gerard Baker are current MSc students at CAT, who last year launched the Transformation Prize – an innovation award for environmental and social projects, open to CAT students and graduates. In our latest guest blog, Gerard explains how they developed the prize, and describes some of the brilliant projects carried out by CAT students that have come to light as a result of the prize.
Developing the idea for the prize
I was sitting in the Sheppard Lecture Theatre one day in December day in 2019 where we took part in an exercise where we had to put up our hands to say how hopeful we were about the future, and many raised their hands to show low levels of hope. This was something I found myself wanting to change. I thought about what CAT had taught me over the last few months about transformational change, and how it would be great to have an innovation prize to help students use the theory and skills we learn during our postgraduate courses at CAT for real-world action.
The idea of the prize is to stimulate work that helps people come together, tackling inequality and taking better care of the natural world – something which CAT and our tutors have taught us is one of the essential aspects of combating the climate and ecological crises. Other inspirations for the prize included a lecture given at CAT by Rob Crompton of the Common Cause Foundation about intrinsic values, and the work of Rob Hopkins, co-founder of the Transition Towns movement, around instilling a longing in people for a better world.
First Transformation Prize – student entries
We had a fascinating variety of entries in our first year running the prize, and it was inspiring to see the range of work carried out by the CAT students and graduates who applied.
Art on Barton, 2020 Entrant Firstly, Anita Gardner’s project, Atelier Aquatic, which brings together artists in Port Barton, Philippines, to raise awareness of endangered sea turtles in the local marine conservation area. They run educational workshops in Tagalog and English, as well as mural-painting sessions, using art to create emotional engagement and a visual presence for the issue.
Meanwhile, Less to Landfill Wales, entered by Joanna Kowalska, is working to promote a shift towards a circular economy in Ceredigion. Although things have been on hold during the Covid-19 pandemic, plans are afoot to hold a community screening of The Plastic Ocean, followed by a debate.
Green GRASS Sheffield, 2020 Finalist One of the finalists was Bethan Robinson’s entry, Green GRASS Sheffield, which is a therapeutic horticulture project for asylum seekers and refugees, providing social connection and mental health support through the growing of food and flowers for people to share.
Tyfu Dyfi, another finalist project, was created by Kirsti Davies as a response to social isolation and panic buying in the Covid-19 pandemic. By working with children and distributing seed packets they are helping local families in the Dyfi Valley to grow food, work together and connect with nature.
The 2020 Transformation Prize
Abbeydale Street Trees: 2020 Winning Entry The winning entry for the 2020 prize was Abbeydale Street Trees, entered by a consortium including CAT students Joel Gilbert and Luke Rose. This project is bringing together local people to create a green corridor and enhance the community in one of Sheffield’s most polluted streets. The team showed impressive energy and enthusiasm, and fundraising activities included a fun run and a farmer’s market stall. The award and funding from the Transformation Prize enabled them to print T-shirts with their logo, to sell on, expand the funding and spread awareness.
We were incredibly lucky to host Judy Ling Wong CBE (honorary President of the Black Environment Network), Tom Crompton and Rob Hopkins as guest speakers in our July 2020 awards ceremony; you can view a short video of highlights on the Transformation Prize website. The recipient of the award was chosen by public vote – over 700 votes were cast – and it was a delight to award funding to Abbeydale Street Trees.
Transformation Prize Award Ceremony July 2020 Transformation Prize launches for 2021
Year 2 of the prize has now launched and is open for applications and expressions of interest. We are keen to expand what the prize achieves, in addition to awarding funding. In this spirit, we are running project development workshops; themes to be explored will include Tom Crompton’s intrinsic values work, as well as inclusivity, community engagement and marketing. We are also providing project planning templates, and further plans include arranging for mentors for the projects, as well as possible expansion to a broader applicant base. We have also recently been awarded funding support from the Liebreich Foundation.
For me, one of the brilliant unanticipated things about running this prize has been a greater sense of hope. However many people there are in the world who do not realise the danger we face or are actively making things worse, the number of people who ‘get it’, and imaginative initiatives ‘fighting back’, means there is still so much to fight for.
If you’re a fellow CAT student or graduate and you would like to get involved or enter the 2021 Transformation Prize – whether or not you have project plans, or even something already up and running, then visit the Transformation Prize website for more details, and to be kept up to date with their plans and workshops. There is so much work to do, and we need to work together!
About the authors
Gerard and Hannah are both MSc students on our MSc in Sustainability and Ecology and MSc in Sustainable Food and Natural Resources and run the Transformation Prize.
If you would like to find out more about these courses or other postgraduate courses delivered by CAT then get in touch with Alis Rees, Graduate School Marketing Officer or book a space on our next Virtual Open Day.
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Meet the Modeller – Interview 1
Following on from the release of the ‘Raising Ambition: Zero Carbon Scenarios from Around the Globe’ report in September 2018, the Zero Carbon Britain team, Paul Allen and Isabel Bottoms, are interviewing some of the modellers behind works featured in the report.
This time we interviewed Christian Breyer, Professor of Solar Economy, to find out what insights he could share.
These interviews open up the black box of how decisions were made, what processes they went through and, in some cases, the modeller’s personal feelings about the work.
We will be publishing interviews at regular intervals on this blog, so stay tuned…
Interview with Christian Breyer, Professor for Solar Economy at LUT University
by Isabel Bottoms, October 29th 2018
Christian Breyer, Professor for Solar Economy at LUT University 1. What and who was the catalyst for you doing all of your 100% Renewable Energy (RE) studies?
The background for the series of work was that academic colleagues were interested in more specific topics of the sustainable energy transition, for example a specific technology, and then a group of researchers became interested in understanding how an entire energy system would work. So my role at LUT was created to build on this existing work and create added value through doing holistic energy transition studies.
It is a personal research interest of mine to understand how a global energy transition to fully sustainable energy system can work. I have a background in general business, I worked for an accounting company 20 years ago, but I am also a physicist and an energy systems engineer. Maybe as a physicist I am more interested in holistic views, and as an engineer I am interested in real practicalities of the transition. In the end, we have to achieve this for all of us on our planet, if Europeans have a nice solution but countries like India or China choose a different (non-renewable) solution, we still all die! So we have to understand it with a global – local resolution.
Why? It’s very simple if you look to what the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is publishing, or the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The modelling should not be done by researchers in a Finnish forest planning for a long winter on their own with a desktop computer. It should not to be divorced from the context being modelled as country nationals can better understand the local constraints. In our international research team and with international students from various countries, we can effectively model energy transitions with local context, and students can take this back home to contribute to their country’s development in this field.
2. How did you secure funding for your work?
Funding does not work, it’s a real problem and I do not receive the funding I need.
The problem is that this kind of energy systems research is not a field of its own with funding. There are ‘old boys networks’ which Governments prefer to use and you can’t find a way in. Research packages have been good opportunities in the past.
PhD studentships working on scholarships for 1-3 years to do a specific piece of research work well, in combination with a mixed team, including a master’s student for half a year etc. Collaborations with companies add value here and there, it is always a fight for resources though, as for all parts of a university.
Challenge no.1 for me as a researcher is conservative reviewers, who know full well that our innovative approach cannot be computed or compared to daily research proposals which are less ambitious. In the process they kill lots of ideas and proposals that we have, and as such, they are a key bottleneck for us in creating new research. They are part of the funding system, and are lagging behind in enabling state of the art research.
3. What model did you use and why?
We have built a linear optimisation model, with full hourly resolution. It’s important to me that we have a cost-optimised model to create attractive results and connect to policy-relevant questions. It should also be flexible enough to be adapted for different regions and country contexts – but the price we pay is that it has to be run by highly trained programming experts!
We use our own model, created from scratch, because we couldn’t find one 4-5 years ago which fulfilled my quality criteria, and it’s also been helpful for adapting over time with changing research focuses.
A particular problem for global models is annual energy balancing rather than an hourly resolution so they still don’t know if they can balance the power system at all times of the year.
4. How did you decide which sectors/boundaries to work within?
Always start with the power sector, because it will be the platform for everything in future. Then heat (highly interconnected to power), then transportation, then industrial feedstocks (chemical industries, steel, metal refining, cement) because they are very energy intensive.
At LUT we have developed a speciality in including seawater desalination, not relevant for Europe as much, but in the Middle East it’s a very big issue. Then at the very end, we need negative emission technologies (NETs) – even the Integrated Assessment Models need to do a better job on this, they are not on the level they should be.
By the end of year we will cover the power, heat, transport sectors and desalination. By this point we’ll have a 90-95% modelling solution. And the next step in the following 12-18 months will be industry and negative emissions. But it will be a few years to get this right, and it will never end because we will keep adjusting.
5. Did you consider the inclusion of land use in your modelling?
We touch land use as ‘resource potential’, because the model is defined by what land resource is available to a country or region. There we have the maximum resource potential for wind and solar technologies which is linked to the land.
Of course biomass is fully linked to the land as we don’t allow energy crops in the model, or no more than are present today.
Desalination touches land use, because we do not model the land use but we model the desalination demand as a function of irrigation efficiency for each region.
When it comes to NETs then for sure we have to go to the core of land use, but when it comes to BECCS (bio-energy with carbon capture and storage) from my point of view, the entire discussion in the last 8 years is 90% wishful thinking by the illusion one could have huge areas covered by energy crops, to be burnt for extracting CO2 from the atmosphere, while ignoring that CO2 direct air capture based on very low cost renewable electricity will be much more area efficient, finally lower in cost and technologically scalable.
We will include BECCS, but it violates everything of what makes sense for a future energy system, for NETs direct air capture is by orders of magnitude more area-efficient than BECCS.
But we don’t have the intention to do detailed land use modelling, we want to keep land use on the level of constraints to the energy system we are interested in, but not as an integral part of the model.
6. What process did you use to develop the scenarios the modelling is shaped by? (e.g. what trends did you decide to use? What assumptions did you make?)
For the fundamental assumptions we start from the reality of today, look at the major drivers and trends of today, then move to our 2050 milestone of a zero emissions energy system.
Boundary conditions and constraints are included as we go. We do not vary cost for efficiency of process, we use a realistic now – 2050 estimate for costs, only making edits to technology costs every 2-4 years for consistency of results, to ensure cost assumptions are comparable across studies.
We also operate with an assumption of bringing power to people and creating PV prosumers (i.e. consumers who also produce energy). We are an exception in this, nearly all models ignore PV prosumers but that ignores an existing reality.
We consider how the country wants to develop its system, does it want to be completely self-sufficient, or develop connections with its neighbours and work reciprocally? We typically nowadays compare current policy scenarios (from in-country studies) to zero by 2050 policy scenarios, with and without CO2 pricing.
7. What surprises have you came across?
It really surprises me that the global models others use are on such a limited methodological level, there is no massive outcry that these limited models are used for these important questions and why are they not improved? This really surprises me that people are happy with insecure, limited and outdated methodologies.
The key of a future energy system is its basement on variable renewable energy technologies, mainly solar photovoltaics and wind energy. This requires modelling of this variability and also flexibility so that for least cost, a new energy system can be evolutionarily created.
Flexibility can be described best in hourly resolution, and it has to comprise the resource complementarity of solar, wind but also hydropower in rivers, the match with dispatchable renewables, mainly bioenergy and hydro reservoirs, then the hourly, diurnal, mid-term and seasonal balancing with storage options, the balancing function of grids and finally sector coupling.
All these flexibility options cannot be described by annual energy balancing models, also models with so-called time slices have their challenges, since they are typically not precise enough. Therefore we have decided to go for full hourly resolution, so that we can better represent a renewable energy based system
8. What would you have done differently given the chance?
From today’s perspective I would do it exactly the same as we’ve done it. When you have to survive all these challenges, it’s better not to know what the pathway has in store: everything is more painful, more complex, but in the end you deliver. If I had known 5 years before how difficult it would be, I’m not sure I would have made the same decision.
Our role is to be a pioneer, and that has been a painful journey because we always have to tell the inconvenient truths, and we are not welcomed with resources. You have to overcome a lot of challenges, but financial resources are really the worst of the challenges. We could do more and better with secure financial resources.
9. How best do you feel modellers can make their work influence policy without compromising the laws of science?
- First of all you need policy makers who are interested in changing something. Those with vested interests in fossil fuels create a very challenging space for discussion.
- Politicians’ weak point is the economics, showing the least cost pathway is extremely difficult to argue against.
- If they don’t like the outcome, ask them to find the weak point in the research, where’s the error in the research? This makes them face their blind spot, which they don’t like!
- Compromise is always part of engaging with policy makers.
- Showing multiple different scenarios is helpful to show how choices impact directions of travel, and to create societal discourse amongst different stakeholders with different interests and real-life constraints. We want the model to represent the system as closely as possible and then to have societal discourse on the scenarios – from companies, to religious groups to NGOs and farmers.
- The local and national results need to coherently connect to a global model in an aggregated way, through a build-up of local pieces (typical global models have generic regions, which create a problematic heterogeneity.)
- Needs to be as close as possible to reality for policy makers, and broad enough to enable discussion on different possible solutions. It’s a challenging balance.
11. What traction or response has your work had?
At a recent conference in London by Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the world market leader in PV – a company in China – which has 20-30% of the global market for PV wafers, and the largest Research and Development budget in the industry, the company Founder and President had 8-9 mins to talk, for 2 mins he talked about LUT’s global 100% RE study! He’s maybe one of the most powerful leaders in the renewables industry for a technology which will be the largest part of our energy transition.
Finnish company Wärtsilä this summer announced a 100% RE strategy, and they clearly said that said that LUT’s research results encouraged and confirmed them in their new corporate strategy.
And then for the first time in history the IPCC 1.5C report has included scientific references to 100% RE scenarios, in competition with IEA’s and other conservative energy scenarios. This was because reviewers in the process challenged the authors off the report in a hard way to include the full scope of scientific literature, including 100% RE.
12. What are you optimistic about?
That we can show that 100% renewable energy works for all regions in the world for everyone, and that it is technically feasible and economically viable makes me very happy.
Learn more about Christian’s Work
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Waste not, want not
In the Welsh seaside town of Aberystwyth, an innovative environmental group has been formed to tackle food waste. CAT graduate Chris Woodfield introduces Aber Food Surplus.
Around 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted every year – that’s around one-third of the total food produced globally. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that if food waste was a country it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the USA . It’s a huge problem – but what can we do about it?
Food waste being left to rot Founded in March 2017, Aber Food Surplus is a not-for-profit social enterprise that works on a local level to highlight and address food waste through hands-on, proactive and positive action. The group currently collects around 300kg of food from supermarkets each week and redistributes it to local charities and community groups in and around the Aberystwyth region, whilst also running food waste education events and offering pay-as-you-feel meals.
Beginnings
The group was set up by three recent graduates of Aberystwyth University – Heather McClure, Chris Byrne and me. Before we created Aber Food Surplus, we had worked together to set up the Aberystwyth University student-led Sustainability Society, where our first campaign was focused on raising awareness of food waste at the university. This work ultimately led to the university installing a food waste collection service in all of its student accommodation. We were keen to build on this success and widen our reach to take in not just the university campus but the rest of the town as well.
When we founded the group, Heather had recently graduated from an MA in Regional and Environmental Policy, Chris was studying for a PhD focusing on global food security, and I was studying for an MSc in Sustainability and Adaptation at CAT, which reinforced my inspiration to tackle global issues in a practical and solutions-focused way within the local community.
We were all inspired to take action, but we were also all working full-time in minimum wage jobs. For more than a year, we ran the project in odd hours between work and study, managing daily food waste collections from Morrisons, Tesco Express, Tesco Superstore and M&S, and distributing food to between 10 and 15 groups in Aberystwyth. On top of this, we also ran a Community Café pay-as-you-feel pop-up event every other week, providing a total of over 1500 surplus meals during this time, and we established a pilot weekly pay-as-you-feel lunch in a local church.
A meal made from food saved by Aber Food Surplus Reaching further
The project was nearing its capacity on volunteer time, so in December 2017 we decided to apply for grant funding to help us expand our work. In April this year we were awarded funding from the EU and Welsh Government, allowing Aber Food Surplus to employ two members of staff for 30 hours a week and one member of staff five hours a week.*
The new funded project focuses on four key elements, which are: waste management innovation; community outreach; campaigns, marketing and promotion; and research and development. These focus areas combine the expansion and development of volunteer engagement through food surplus collections with the already thriving active community presence through more creative and effective public engagement and targeted education. For example, we are working with schools, the university, youth groups, families, the elderly, and clients of the charities and community groups that we deliver food to.
The waste management innovation side of the project focuses on tackling food waste at source; it is centred on preventing and reducing waste as well as exploring other innovative schemes with local businesses. Example activities include a community fridge, community composting schemes, trialling the use of apps in reducing food waste, and experimenting with more engaging and sustainable ways of collecting and redistributing food, e.g. using bikes and electric vehicles.
Ultimately, the group aims to enable and facilitate the town of Aberystwyth to demonstrate that it can become a zero-food-waste community as well as a thriving, exciting and connected place to live, with rewarding and fulfilling opportunities for everyone.
Aberystwyth harbour – image by Julian Nitzsche Why food waste?
The issue of food waste caught the public’s attention with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s primetime BBC programme, Hugh’s War on Waste, in late 2015. By highlighting the level of food waste across UK farms, retailers and households, the programme shamed supermarkets into action.
Morrisons, which at the time was the only large supermarket in Aberystwyth, was looking for pilot food redistribution projects across Wales. With the aid of WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) Cymru, this enabled us to start food waste collections and redistributions. The team already had contacts at WRAP Cymru and were inspired by the likes of Tristram Stuart and his company Feedback, as well as the food waste organisation This is Rubbish, which was originally founded in Machynlleth by CAT volunteers.
In addition, whilst collecting this food waste and starting to organise community events the team realised the beautiful potential of using food, especially food that would have been wasted, to bring people together. Food has the amazing ability to bind communities and allow people to connect with each other, learn, share stories and ideas and enjoy each other’s company, no matter what background, nationality, age, demographic or social hierarchy. This is reflected in the core values of Aber Food Surplus which are happiness, community and creativity.
How you can help
Aber Food Surplus has recently launched a new website so do please take a look!
We will be posting regular blog articles about food waste and our journey as well as information about upcoming events. If you would like to partner with us to run an event, please get in touch – we’re always looking to expand our network.
If you would like to start a similar project and would like advice, or if you have any suggestions for us, we’re more than happy to chat – drop us a line at aberfoodsurplus@outlook.com
About the author
Chris is a graduate of CAT’s MSc Sustainability and Adaptation, where his dissertation project focused on nature connection, happiness and pro-environmental behaviour. As well as his work on food waste, Chris is also passionate about tackling ocean plastics and is the coordinator of Plastic Free Aberystwyth as well as a number of other community-based environmental projects.
* The funding for Aber Food Surplus is from the LEADER scheme through the Cynnal y Cardi Local Action Group (administered by Ceredigion County Council) which is funded through the Welsh Government Rural Communities – Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, which is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government.
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CAT shares Zero Carbon Britain with policymakers and political parties
Cross-party consensus on ambitious targets, and a clear roadmap for effective climate action is urgently needed. That’s the message Paul Allen has been taking to politicians from across the political spectrum, most recently at a meeting with Energy Minister, Claire Perry.
As we have witnessed in the past, changes in government can cause massive upheaval in our collective approach to the climate challenge. To help build strong cross-party consensus, CAT has been sharing our Zero Carbon Britain research with key thinkers and policymakers.
Paul presenting CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain research to Energy Minister, Claire Perry Since the release of the IPCC 1.5C report, there has been a growing political consensus that to avoid really dangerous climate change we need to reach net-zero emissions as soon as possible before 2050. But between now and then, there will be eight or nine general elections, and it has become crystal clear that shifts in government can cause massive shifts in our approach to rising to the challenge.
A stable plan is urgently needed.
Cross-party consensus on climate action
Building a cross-party consensus on a delivery plan requires giving decision-makers access to scenarios that show how existing technology can be used to provide a reliable energy supply for the UK with 100% renewable energy sources, grow the vast majority of the food needed for a healthy, low carbon diet, and to manage the land to capture carbon, nurture biodiversity and increase the health and resilience of UK ecosystems.
Driven by an inclusive process, such agreement on action would offer a long-term stable framework for municipal or business investment, training and skills, technology research and development, and job creation. It would also, of course, increase confidence from wider society that no one will use this urgent challenge as a political football.
Paul speaking to business leaders and policymakers at the North Wiltshire Sustainable Business Conference Pushing for net zero
So, to help lay the foundations for cross-party consensus, CAT has been sharing our Zero Carbon Britain (ZCB) research with key thinkers and policymakers.
As the UK Committee on Climate Change is the body that has now been asked to scope out delivering net-zero for Britain, we have sent copies of ZCB to the committee’s chair, Lord Deben – the UK’s longest-serving Secretary of State for the Environment (1993 to 1997), to Baroness Brown of Cambridge, Chair of the Adaptation Sub-Committee (ASC) and to Professor Jim Skea, who is also Co-Chair of Working Group III (Mitigation) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Back in 2007, following the launch of our initial report in Parliament, our local MP Lembit Opik shared it with the Liberal Democrats, which within six weeks led to the launch of their policy ‘Zero Carbon Britain – Taking a Global Lead’. CAT has been sharing our work with them on a regular basis, as we have with the other political parties.
However, in the wake of the recent IPCC 1.5C report, both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party have now adopted zero carbon as their end-goal, so now we have cross-party consensus on the target – which in itself is a great step forward.
Talking to policymakers
To help build a platform for a cross-party action plan, we have sent copies of our work to relevant Labour policymakers, including Rebecca Long Bailey MP Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and Dr Alan Whitehead MP Shadow Minister (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy).
Last weekend at the launch event for a Zero Carbon West Berkshire I gave a briefing to the local Conservative MP Rt Hon Richard Benyon, and have sent him copies of our research together with an offer for a detailed briefing.Zero Carbon Britain for the Energy Minister
The following Saturday, at the North Wiltshire Sustainable Business Conference, I briefed Rt. Hon. Claire Perry MP, Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth, and presented her with a copy of our energy model, which she promised to read.
In her role as Britain’s climate change minister, Claire Perry announced the Government’s intention to explore a net-zero target for the UK back in the spring. Since then, 132 members of parliament and 51 peers from all major parties have called on the Prime Minister to commit to net-zero by 2050.
This degree of consensus is reminiscent of the overwhelming cross-party support for the Climate Change Act, passed 10 years ago. And, just like 10 years ago, the opposition (now Labour, then the Conservatives) is pushing the Government to take a more progressive stance.
If the target is set, the UK would join Norway and Sweden, which have legislated net-zero or near-net-zero targets. New Zealand, Iceland and California are among growing list that have announced, but not yet enacted, net-zero targets.
Climate justice
The UK and other long-industrialised nations grew wealthy on the back of burning fossil fuels; climate justice demands that wealthier nations take ambitious action now, and provide both financial and technical support for less developed countries to help them with mitigation and adaptation measures. The sooner this is achieved, the better our collective chances of avoiding the really serious climate impacts.
That is why CAT is calling for the launch of an inclusive process to build a cross-party consensus on an ambitious climate action plan to allow a consistent, coherent approach regardless of who is in and out of government over the next 20 years.
CAT’s new Raising Ambition report looks at low- and zero-carbon scenarios from across the globe Raising Ambition
To add weight to the Zero Carbon Britain findings, we are also offing a range of international scenarios. Launched in September 2018 our new report, Raising Ambition: Zero Carbon Scenarios from Across the Globe, brings together an international range of scenarios exploring climate-stable futures at global, regional, national and sub-national scales.
You can download all our Zero Carbon Britain research reports from http://www.zerocarbonbritain.org
Would you like to support CAT’s work and keep in touch with our latest news and research? Please consider becoming a member.