Tim has just a new paper published in the highly esteemed journal Energy Policy.  The paper follows as a direct result of Tim's 2010 Fellowship in DECC, and was written with Patricia Allen who undertook most of the work for the project as her dissertation for the UWE MSc in Environmental Consultancy.  This paper, along with the work of Dr Rose Bailey (see http://www.futurebristol.co.uk/) demonstrate the leading role that AQMRC is taking in supporting the development of strong, credible visions for a low carbon future.

 

Carbon reduction scenarios for 2050: An explorative analysis of public preferences

Allen, P., Chatterton, T.

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of public preferences for a low carbon future UK and compares them with three future scenarios proposed by the UK government based on data from 10,983 self-selected participants who engaged in the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change 'My2050' online simulation. Participants expressed a stronger preference for demand-side options than for supply-side ones. They also chose fuel switching (to electricity) and technical energy efficiency measures above more behaviour focused options. Renewable energy options (wind, solar, marine and hydro) were preferred to other low carbon supply options (nuclear power, carbon capture and storage), with offshore wind power more popular than onshore. Nuclear power was the least popular generation option. Acceptability of the government′s three proposed scenarios was tested by comparing these scenarios with the research findings. Greatest support was suggested for the two scenarios emphasising business greenness, home energy efficiency, electrification of home heating and travel behaviour. The lowest level of support was demonstrated for the scenario based on significant growth in nuclear power with minimal increases in energy efficiency. Despite issues regarding the representivity of the sampled respondents, the work demonstrates the possibility of using outputs from the tool to assess publically preferred pathways.

 

Patricia Allen, Tim Chatterton, Carbon reduction scenarios for 2050: An explorative analysis of public preferences, Energy Policy, Available online 17 September 2013, ISSN 0301-4215, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.08.079.

 

AQMRC wins Framework Agreement on EU Air Quality Policies

AQMRC (in consortium with partners Triple E Consulting, TNO, TML, DTU ME-SYS and DCE) has been awarded a major contract (4 million Euro) by the European Commission’s DG Environment. Over the next 4 years, the consortium will evaluate, implement and further develop Europe’s air quality policies.

European air pollution policy has a long history, with the most recent policy round having been launched in 2005 with the Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution. The strategy’s goals of achieving “levels of air quality that do not result in unacceptable impacts on, and risks to, human health and the environment” had already been part of the Sixth Environment Action Programme and are now also embedded in the Proposal for a new EU Environment Action Programme to 2020 (7^th EAP). The main objective of this Framework Agreement is to support the European Commission’s DG Environment in the evaluation, implementation and further development of air quality policies. Specifically, the support provided within the context of this Framework Agreement is articulated to:

1. Improve air policy management - aims at developing improved strategies for the EU air quality legislation. This necessarily includes the improvement of legal provisions, monitoring, reporting, assessment and management at the different levels of governance.
2. Project air pollution and air quality - aims to update and improve the current reference projections for a number of key sectors to better understand policy impacts and to compare different strategies. This objective requires expertise and know-how on state-of-the-art models and well established methodologies. Developing reference projections for energy, transport, agriculture, sectoral policies and carrying out impact assessments of different strategies demands a high level of confidence in dealing with state-of-the-art models.
3. Assess additional EU measures - consists of assessing from a technical point of view (especially with regard to costs, benefits and feasibility) the possible measures for further air emission reduction at the EU level.
4. Assess local measures - in line with Objective 3, this objective aims at assessing from a technical point of view (especially with regard to costs, benefits and feasibility) the possible measures for air pollution reduction at a local level.
5. Support evaluation and further development of air policy - includes the assessment of current legislation with regard to the outstanding issues not covered by the previous review on air quality legislation.

Rose and Jo present ECO Stars toolkit

Dr Rose Bailey and Jo Barnes presented their work on the Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment of the South Yorks ECO Stars scheme at the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive, Sheffield last Wednesday.  The presentation and toolkit demonstration were very well received by an audience including the ECO Stars steering group, fleet operators, and David Pryke (DfT) and Robert Vaughan (Defra). This Q&QA work builds on one of the key recommendations from an Evaluation study that UWE undertook on the South Yorks ECO Stars scheme in 2011. For more details about the ECO Stars scheme visit their website http://www.care4air.org/archive/ecostars/index.html.

Defra Sounding Board for Guidance on Cost-Effective LAQM Measures

On Friday 13^th September, Tim was an invited participant to a workshop at Defra on the development of a guidebook for local authorities on cost-effective measures to improve public health through the reduction of air pollution.

Future Mobilities - Disruption

This week, Tim will be attending the Future Mobilities conference at Lancaster University. http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/events/mobility-futures/

 

He will be presenting a paper on “Disruption: Inevitability, Opportunity, Necessity” as part of the EPSRC/RCUK Energy Programme Disruption project www.distruptionproject.net